The Result

[RedToothBrush]

Exit poll in 5 mins.

Pull up a chair.

On the basis of the two results declared so far, I'm suspecting (and hoping) that a large portion of this Reform vote is taken up by the likes of voters who voted Tory when the red wall fell.

Laura Keunssberg, who couldn't contain her excitement, in the last GE, isn't giving the Tories an easy time. I guess she wants to keep her job!

This doesn't seem to be a great result for Labour at all.

3/4am-ish but if it’s very close there may be recounts.

I disagree red.

We've all been through a hideous near 17 years with events out of our control. The global credit crisis was absolutely massive and people seem to to be forget that, remember isis and horrific terrorist attacks, people being beheaded in orange suits, people slaughtered in Paris, London etc Germany. Then covid /Ukraine and so on.
People blame the government that's in, for Europe that's been left center left and for us it's happened to be tory
A lady was on the news after macron called a snap election and she had exactly the same moans as the UK populace does.

On a female dominated forum, can we please not casually use the word 'rape' to mean something that is not actually rape? Electoral defeat is not rape.

Based on percentage of votes it's not a good start, hopefully the MPs that have now taken their seats will win people over?!

I think he weaponised himself.

A massive majority doesn’t seem good?

yea im sure labour are crying over it

Apart from a largest majority since 1832, you mean?

They may well be in 2029.

People are already trying to bend over backwards to minimise Labours results 🙄

Rees-Mogg looked very red in the face. Been raiding his wine cellar in despair, clearly.

Projecting much?

Youre right about the red wall falling in 2019. A lot of people who left Labour for Tory gifted Tory the win back then. A lot of these have now gravitated to Reform,. The overall Labour numbers arent that differnet to last time. Its the Tory loss to Reform thats the big news.

5 years on its own is not long enough to effect lasting change. What Labour need is a shift towards them that is likely to last beyond one term.

I hope they've got that (although I am actually a Green supporter at heart), but it doesn't look like they do.

At the moment it looks as though a Con/Ref merger could beat Labour at the next election. And the Con / Ref parties will have spotted that too. This is what I meant about Farage looking for ways to build influence.

I find the taste of sour grapes delicious, to be honest.

Despite the Reform vote, which looks a lot like a howl of protest from bitterly deprived areas - vis à vis France, might it mean that Britain lurched Right/ Populist first with Brexit and Boris, and is now starting to come out of the insanity, whereas Europe is still on that trajectory and hasn’t hit its worst yet?

I think there’s a lot in what a pp said about incumbents getting a hammering, too.

I agree.
The right will just move further and further, the beast will never be sated, the sunlit uplands will always be just a little further away, just a little step more. A Reform vote looks like throwing good money after bad, Brexit didn't deliver what it promised, so we have to go further to find the pot of gold.
I'm happy for a Labour win, life was much better for ordinary people when they were last to charge, but the rise of Reform is really worrying.

I'll be staying up for that one

I said back in 2019 that the Tories had taken the fact that they'd hold those seats in the red wall for granted already in the next election.

It turns out that a one issue election isn't a good indicator.

Wigan is 99+ labour hold according to exit poll data

Yeah, were you complaining in 2019?

Loads of the red wall went down to a few hundred votes never mind a few thousand.