By Sir John Curtice, BBC polling expert
BBC
Labour have won the 2024 general election with a landslide and a likely overall majority of 176 seats. However, their victory has largely been secured on the back of a dramatic 20 point decline in Conservative support.
With two results yet to be declared, the outcome is set to be the worst Conservative result in history in terms of seats, with the party on 121.
With 71 seats, the Lib Dems have won their highest tally since 1923.
However, Labour’s tally of 412 seats is a little less than the 419 Tony Blair won in 1997. Their vote share is up by just under two points across the country.
This is primarily as a result of a 17 point increase in support in Scotland. In Wales, the party’s vote has actually fallen back by four points, while in England the party’s vote is up half a point from 2019.
Loss of votes to Reform UK costs Tories
Labour have secured their landslide on a lower share of the vote (35% in Great Britain) than won by Tony Blair in each of his three victories, as well as the 40% won by Jeremy Corbyn in 2017.
Indeed, the party’s share of the vote is the lowest won by a post-war single party government.
All in all this looks more like an election the Conservatives lost than one Labour won.
Conservative support fell most heavily in seats they were trying to defend. In seats where the party won 25% of the vote in 2019 they are down eight points. However, in seats where they won more then 50% they are down 29 points.
One key reason is that support for Reform rose more sharply, by 16 points, in seats that the Conservatives were defending – twice as much as in seats Labour were defending.
This is thanks in part at least to the willingness of Labour supporters to vote tactically against Conservative incumbents.
As a result, the Lib Dems were able to win a record 71 seats, despite their vote only increasing by half a point across the country. Their 12% of the vote is still well down on the 23% the party secured before they entered the coalition government in 2010.
Unsurprisingly, Reform did especially well in seats where a high proportion of people voted Leave in 2016.
Meanwhile, the Conservatives’ difficulties have been compounded by the fact that Labour’s vote has increased by six points in seats where the party started second to the Conservatives, far better than elsewhere (outside of Scotland).
The especially large advances that the Conservatives secured in Leave-voting areas after the EU referendum, most notably in 2019, have been entirely lost. Compared with 2019, support for the Conservatives is down by 12 points in seats where fewer than 45% voted Leave. In contrast, support for the party is down by 27 points in seats where more than 65% voted Leave.
Putting aside the two seats left to declare, in over 170 of the Conservative seats they lost, the Reform vote was greater than the margin of the Conservatives’ defeat.
Of course, not everybody who voted Reform would have otherwise voted Conservative, but most of them certainly voted Conservative in 2019. These statistics underline the extent to which the heavy loss of Conservative votes to Reform has cost Rishi Sunak’s party dear.
Reform themselves have, however, found it difficult to convert votes into seats, and the party has won no more than four seats, including Nigel Farage in Clacton.
Greens do well in graduate seats
The SNP have suffered a serious drubbing. Their share of the vote is down 15 points, while Labour’s is up by 17 points north of the border.
With one seat they may win yet to declare, it now looks as though the SNP will win no more than 10 seats. Much of the decimation of Labour’s position in Scotland in the wake of the 2014 independence referendum has seemingly now been reversed.
The Greens have recorded their best general election performance yet, and will likely win 7% of the vote across Great Britain, increasing their seats from one to four.
That success was achieved by demonstrating a new-found ability to overcome the hurdle that first-past-the-post poses for smaller parties, by concentrating their efforts in a handful of target seats where they have a local government base.
For the most part, the party’s vote rose more in seats held by Labour than in those held by the Conservatives, and especially more in places with many graduates.
But at the same time, they won two seats in the Tory shires by squeezing both Labour and Lib Dem support, as voters apparently became convinced in these seats that the Greens were best able to defeat the Conservatives locally.
Second lowest turnout since 1885
Labour have lost four races in seats with large Muslim populations to independent candidates. The intervention of independents also resulted in the loss of a further seat with a large Muslim population to the Conservatives.
The party’s vote is down on average by 11 points in seats where more than 10% of the population identify as Muslim.
In a remarkable individual performance, Jeremy Corbyn retained his Islington North seat as an independent.
Six independents have been elected in total, the highest proportion since the abolition of the university seats at the 1950 election.
Turnout is well down compared with recent elections, falling by eight points to 60%. This will be the second lowest turnout ever in a UK election since 1885. Only the 59% in 2001 was lower.
