Investing.com - The first exit poll from the U.K.’s general election showed a landslide victory for Boris Johnson’s Conservative Party, with a greater majority than most polls showed throughout the campaign.
Coverage from the election night count can be watched live in the video link below.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson called the general election in the hope that he could secure a mandate for his Brexit deal. The prime minister’s campaign stressed a vote for the Tory party would ‘get Brexit done’ and sought to win over traditional Labour seats that voted leave in the 2016 Brexit referendum.
Market participants will be watching the results of many of the marginal seats and traditionally Labour areas that voted to leave the European Union. A Conservative majority is widely viewed as a positive result for markets.
Foreign secretary Dominic Raab held onto his Esher & Walton seat despite considerable gains for the Liberal Democrats.
The Liberal Democrats gained Richmond Park from the Conservatives, formerly Zac Goldsmith's constituency.
A joint BBC/ITV/Sky exit poll is devised from 144 carefully polling stations around the U.K. A breakdown of the exit poll is as follows:
With 368 seats, the exit poll predicts a majority of 86 for the Tory party, marking the biggest win for the party since 1987. At 191 seats, it would be the biggest loss for the opposition Labour Party since 1935.
As more results trickle through, broadcasters have updated predictions on the final result. At 03:00 GMT, the BBC predicts the Conservatives to win 357 seats, a slightly smaller majority than the exit poll suggests. The projection cuts Labour’s losses to 201.
The first shock result of the night came as Blyth Valley, a typical Labour stronghold, voted for the Conservatives for the first time since the constituency’s creation in 1950. Labour’s share of the vote was down by 15%.
The first seat to declare results of was Newcastle Upon Tyne Central where the opposition Labour Party held the seat, albeit with a slimmer majority than in the 2017 general election.
Labour also held Leicester South, Makerfield, Gateshead, Halton, Wansbeck, Jarrow and the Northeast constituencies of Newcastle East, Newcastle North, Middlesbrough, Sunderland, Washington and Sunderland West, Houghton and Sunderland South seats.
Barnsley Central was a hold for the Labour Party despite a 10.5% swing from Labour to Conservative; the Brexit Party and Conservative Party combined had more share of the vote than Jeremy Corbyn's Labour party.
The remain-heavy constituency of Putney bucked the trend of the evening by voting in Labour and ousting the Tories. A key target of the Conservatives, Canterbury, was held by Labour with a swing of 1.4% from Tories to Labour. .
Jeremy Corbyn's Islington North seat remained safe for the Labour Party. In his acceptance speech, Corbyn indicated he would not fight another election as Labour leader as the party had lost more than 46 seats to SNP and Tories.
The SNP looked like it could be on course to wipe out other parties in Scotland as it took Angus, Stirling and Renfrewshire East from the Conservatives and Rutherglen & Hamilton West from the Labour Party. The Scottish Nationals took the Liberal Democrat leader Jo Swinson's East Dunbartonshire seat with a majority of just 149 votes.
In Northern Ireland, Sinn Fein's John Finucane unseated the Democratic Unionist Party's Nigel Dodds. The Alliance Party also picked up a seat from the DUP. The DUP, which propped up Theresa May's government following the 2017 snap election, kept its seat in Londonderry.
The Conservatives gained the constituency of Workington from Labour, a key focus of Johnson's campaign. The Tories also took High Peak, Peterborough, Wrexham, Wolverhampton, Scunthorpe and Vale of Clwyd from Labour. Earlier in the evening it was announced the shadow Brexit minister Jenny Chapman's seat in Darlington was lost to the Conservatives.
Johnson's party held former leader of the Conservative Party Iain Duncan Smith's Chingford seat, the City of London, Surrey East, Basildon & Billericay, Basildon South, Bracknell, Swindon North, Nuneaton and Broxbourne.
Tony Blair's former seat of Sedgefield was lost to the Conservative Party.
Declared seats:
- Conservative: 259
- Labour: 167
- SNP: 41
- Liberal Democrats: 7
- Plaid Cymru: 3
- DUP: 5
- Sinn Fein: 4
- Green: 1
- Others: 4
The British pound jumped after the poll was announced when polling stations closed at 22:00 GMT.
At 04:15 GMT, GBP/USD was up 2.33% at 1.3468.
EUR/GBP was down 1.82% to 0.8297, GBP/JPY was up 2.60% to 147.58.
Please refresh for updates as more seats declare results.
Watch the election count coverage from up and down the country live in the video below.