Labour's landslide victory saw Sir Kier Starmer enter Number 10 Downing Street as the UK's 58th Prime Minister - ending fourteen years of Conservative Party chaos
Keir Starmer has officially become the UK's 58th Prime Minister after the Labour Party's landslide victory in the General Election.
The Labour leader met with King Charles yesterday to form the first majority Labour Government since 2010, ending 14 years of Tory chaos. The colossal victory saw Starmer scoop 412 seats in the House of Commons, with 9.6million Brits voting Labour in this year's election.
Promising to improve the state of our nation, the new Prime Minister said: "Whether you voted labour or not, in fact especially if you did not, I say to you directly - my government will serve you. Politics can be a force for good, We have shown that."
Meanwhile, Defeated Tory PM Rishi Sunak used his farewell address from Downing Street earlier to confirm he will stand down as Conservative leader – after the party suffered a horror show defeat in Thursday's General Election.
With the Conservatives facing their worst result in history, the Liberal Democrats seeing their highest tally since 1923, and Reform and Green both making gains, it’s been an interesting election, to say the least. As Labour storms to victory with a landslide majority, we take a look at some key findings from the 2024 general election, in maps.
Biggest swings
This election has seen some record-breaking swings thanks to the collapse in Tory support. Most significant was the huge swing seen in Clacton, where, after eight previous failed attempts, Reform UK leader Nigel Farage was finally elected an MP.
While the Tories had won the seat in 2019 with 72% of the vote, they only managed to scrape together a vote share of 28% this time around. Meanwhile, Farage scooped 46% of the vote at this election - a significant change from 2019, when Reform UK didn’t have a candidate in the constituency at all.
The biggest swing away from Labour was seen in Bristol Central, where the Green party won with a majority of 57% - up from 26%. Labour only got 33% of the vote in the constituency this election, which was down from 59%.
Voter turnout
Voter apathy has been an issue throughout the election campaign, and overall turnout was estimated to be the lowest seen since 2001. Turnout was down in 644 of 650 constituencies, and there were 63 constituencies where fewer than half of the electorate voted.
Manchester Rusholme saw the lowest turnout in the UK, at just 40% - down from 57% in 2019. That compares to a turnout of 76% in Central Suffolk and North Ipswich, which was up from 71% and the highest in the country.
Meanwhile, Tamworth saw the biggest drop in turnout, with only 45% of the electorate voting at this election, which was down by a whopping 20 percentage points from 65% in 2019.
Reform
The collapse in Conservative support has been greatly exacerbated by Reform UK eating into the Tory vote share.
The party won four seats - Ashfield, Boston and Skegness, Clacton and Great Yarmouth - and came second place in a further 103. If the rightwing vote had not been split in this way, it’s estimated that the Conservatives may have won an additional 180 seats overall.
Our map shows the 136 seats where Reform got more votes than the Tories - most notably in Ashfield, where Reform won 43% of the vote to the Conservatives 8%. Similarly, 33% of voters in Barnsley South voted for Reform, compared to 9% who voted for the Tories, as did 31% of Kingston upon Hull East compared to 9%.
Green
The Greens also won four seats - Brighton Pavilion, Bristol Central, Waveney Valley, and North Herefordshire - quadrupling the party’s seat count.
The party came in second place in 47 constituencies, and increased their national vote share from 2.7% in 2019 to 7.0% in this election.
The party won the most votes in Bristol Central, with 57% of the vote, followed by Brighton Pavilion (55%), Herefordshire North (43%) and Waveney Valley (42%).
While they lost to Labour in Bristol East, they still won 31% of the vote, and the party also proved popular in Huddersfield (26%), Sheffield Central (26%) and Bristol South (25%).
Tory losses
This election has been more about Tory defeat than it has been about Labour victory, with Labour’s growing seat tally largely due to huge drops in Conservative support rather than their own rising popularity.
In fact, the overall vote share for Keir Starmer’s party is only around two points higher than in 2019, while the Tories’ has pretty much halved. All in all, the Conservatives have lost 250 seats that they previously held - with 181 going to Labour, 60 going to the Lib Dems, four going to Reform, two to the Green party, two to Plaid Cymru and one to the SNP.
Note: this data is correct as of 5th July, with a small handful of constituencies yet to declare a winner.
