The results are in, and by a landslide, Labour wins the 2024 UK election.
None of this was unexpected. Labour and the new British prime minister, Keir Starmer, led in the opinion polls for about the past two years. Their lead only grew with time, and expectations entering the 4 July poll were that Labour would walk away with a huge majority. That is exactly what they got.
In one of the most interesting election nights any of us have seen in decades, Labour was swept into power. It is, however, perhaps just as interesting to note how they were swept in, and all of the electoral shifts which happened around them.
Labour Wins 2024 UK Election: Results Overview
With results on 648 out of 650, Labour won 412 seats en route to their biggest election victory since 2001. The Conservatives, who won a large majority with 365 seats in 2019, were reduced to just 121. The Liberal Democrats surged to 71 seats, while the SNP collapsed from 48 seats to nine. Both the Greens and Reform UK won four seats each.
Our final election prediction had Labour on 412 and the Conservatives on 128 – not bad by us.
Big Conservative Names Fall
Some of the prominent Conservatives to lose their seats on election night 2024 included:
- Liz Truss (Norfolk South West)
- Jacob Rees-Mogg (Somerset North East & Hanham)
- Penny Mordaunt (Portsmouth North)
- Grant Shapps (Welwyn Hatfield)
- Johnny Mercer (Plymouth Moor View)
- GIllian Keegan (Chichester)
- Robert Buckland (Swindon South)
In the case of Truss, this humiliating loss was an upset that most forecasters – ourselves included – did not see coming. Her seat was considered so safe that most figured she would escape the Labour tsunami, but she did not.
Liberal Democrats Win Record Number of Seats
The Liberal Democrats smashed records by winning 71 seats, the most they have ever won at a general election. One would have to go back to their predecessor party, the Liberals, to find anything comparable or greater.
The South of England is awash with Lib Dem yellow, with the party gaining dozens of seats in traditional Tory heartlands. Among their more notable gains were Esher & Walton, formerly Dominic Raab’s seat, Maidenhead, which was Theresa May’s old seat, Surrey Heath, previously with Michael Gove, and Witney, David Cameron’s old seat. The Lib Dems also retook Yeovil, Paddy Ashdown’s old seat – he is no doubt smiling on his party from the great beyond today.
Labour Wins 2024 UK Election, But Suffer Several Surprise Losses
Though Labour won a massive majority of over 170 seats, it could have been even bigger. Labour suffered some losses as pro-Palestinian independents snatched seats away from them in areas with higher Muslim populations. Leicester South, Dewsbury & Batley, Blackburn, and Birmingham Perry Barr fell on election night to independent candidates.
Jeremy Corbyn was another independent who won in Islington North, but that was far less of a surprise. He won a huge majority en route to re-election, but he will be on the opposition benches while his former party is in government.
Not all left-wing minor party candidates of note were successful, however. George Galloway, who won a recent by-election in Rochdale for the Workers’ Party, fell to Labour on Thursday.
SNP Collapse in Scotland
The SNP’s trendlines in recent times were a lot like those of the Conservatives. A loss of public trust followed by ignoring key issues helped the Scottish National Party collapse in Thursday’s election. Once the dominant party in Scotland which won the vast majority of seats in 2019, the SNP was reduced to just nine seats. The swing from SNP to Labour in Scotland was about 16 percent.
Labour won 37 seats in Scotland, well up from the one they took in 2019. The Tories and Lib Dems won five each. Just one seat in Scotland remains outstanding.
Reform, Greens Break Through
Reform UK and the Green Party each won four seats at the general election. The exit poll overestimated Reform at 13, but underestimated the Greens at two. Reform was able to get its leaders, Nigel Farage and Richard Tice, into parliament. However, beyond those and two other gains, the seat advance stopped. They were, however, buoyed by a third-place vote share nationally. Reform came in second place in dozens of constituencies, beating the Tories back into third, and in some places fourth.
As for the Greens, they held their Brighton seat, but added new seats in Bristol Central, Herefordshire North, and Waveney Valley. They saw their national vote share increase to almost seven percent. Some of that may have been left-wing voters not giving their marks to Labour for various reasons, but who were seen as a virtual lock to win anyway.
Tories Wiped Out in Wales
The Conservatives won 12 seats in Wales in the 2019 election. They came out of the 2024 election with zero. Despite an unpopular devolved Labour government in Cardiff, Labour claimed 27 seats, a gain of nine. Plaid Cymru won four seats, a gain of two, while the Lib Dems are back in Wales by winning in Brecon.
DUP Takes Significant Losses in Northern Ireland
The DUP lost three seats as Sinn Fein is now the outright largest party in Northern Ireland’s 18 constituencies. Sinn Fein retained all seven of theirs, while the DUP now sits at five.
Both the SDLP and Alliance held steady with two and one seats, respectively. There were, however, other moves, as the Ulster Unionists are back in Parliament with a gain in South Antrim, and North Down and North Antrim went to an independent and Traditional Unionist voice, respectively.
