Here are some images from around the country as people go to vote this morning. Polling stations will be open until 10pm, and for the first time voters in England, Scotland and Wales will need to produce photo ID to vote in person during a general election. Northern Ireland introduced voter ID in 2002.
A member of the polling station team at the Agape Centre in south Belfast hangs a sign ahead of polling stations opening. Photograph: Liam McBurney/PA
A polling station sign outside Monk Sherborne Village Hall in Hampshire. Photograph: Andrew Matthews/PA
People queue to enter a polling station near Battersea Power Station. Photograph: Toby Melville/Reuters
Election day is always a good day for publicity stunts getting into the media, as this Peta activist dressed as a bear outside a polling station demonstrates …
A Peta activist dressed as a bear holds a sign outside a polling station. Photograph: Claudia Greco/Reuters
Here is a little glimpse behind the scenes, with the press pack of photographers marking time before Rishi Sunak arrived to vote in his constituency by taking lots of pictures of somebody putting up a sign.
Members of the media photograph a sign outside the polling station in Kirby Sigston. Photograph: Owen Humphreys/PA
Labour leader Keir Starmer is expected to cast his vote at about 9.30am, with Liberal Democrat leader Ed Davey and Green Party co-leader Carla Denyer both expected to vote – in different places obviously – at about 10.30am.
If you want to start planning your evening, then here is our hour-by-hour guide to when we can expect to see results declared.
Former Labour party leader Jeremy Corbyn has made an appeal for people to come out and help his campaign in North Islington as an independent. In it he says:
We have built this campaign from nothing. We don’t have party machinery. We don’t have big donors. We have something more powerful: people.
We have built this campaign from nothing. We don’t have party machinery. We don’t have big donors. We have something more powerful: people.
Come to our campaign HQ at 89-93 Fonthill Rd to help us Get Out The Vote.
Another independent candidate in London who has previously stood for Labour, Fazia Shaheen, has also posted, saying “Let’s show the world what we’ve got! Our community and people-powered campaign could win today. They know it and they are scared. The Tories are finally out, let’s start a new politics.”
The polls are open! Beautiful Chingford & Woodford Green, let’s show the world what we’ve got! Our community and people-powered campaign could win today, They know it and they are scared. The Tories are finally out, let’s start a new politics#GeneralElection2024pic.twitter.com/nkwi8poSzs
Polling seems to indicate that there are a lot of potentially undecided voters out there still. If you are undecided, maybe a quick peruse of the manifestos may be in order. Here is a handy list of manifestos for all the parties who had MPs at the end of the last parliament, plus a few select others …
Obviously you will have this live blog open all through the night, but here is our guide to what you could be watching out of the corner of your eye while reading Andrew Sparrow later on …
Rishi Sunak made the short journey from his grade II-listed manor house to vote at Kirby Sigston Village Hall in his Richmond and Northallerton constituency. Sunak and his wife Akshata Murty arrived in a Range Rover and walked hand-in-hand into the village hall. Sunak greeted the photographers outside the polling station. He left without commenting and was driven away.
Prime minister Rishi Sunak and his wife, Akshata Murty arrive to cast their vote at Kirby Sigston and District Village Hall, North Yorkshire. Photograph: Christopher Thomond/The Guardian
Various senior political figures have been posting messages to encourage people to vote for them on social media.
Vaughan Gething has said in his clip that “You might not be particularly shocked by this, but I think that you should vote for the Labour party.”
The first minister of Wales accused the Conservative government in Westminster of having made a deliberate choice to starve Wales of investment, and said “I can tell you that the number one thing the Wales needs right now is a UK Labour government to work in partnership with.”
Home secretary James Cleverly has posted a picture of him at Braintree railway station, with the message “Happy polling day to all who celebrate this festival of democracy.”
In Northern Ireland, first minister Michelle O’Neill has asked the country to “return the strongest Sinn Féin team”. In a message for the wider UK electorate she said:
I also urge people to support progressive candidates in constituencies where Sinn Féin is not standing, ensuring the maximum number of progressive MPs are elected. Let’s work together.
Today, I am asking you to vote Sinn Féin and return the strongest Sinn Féin team.
I am asking you to endorse strong leadership, positive change, and our commitment to work for all.
I also urge people to support progressive candidates in constituencies where Sinn Féin is not… pic.twitter.com/4uvsHa5u7a
Nigel Farage, the recently installed leader of Reform UK, has reposted his party’s party political broadcast featuring him in the Kent countryside with his dog, urging people to “Vote with your heart”.
My colleague Libby Brooks is not up for election, but she has urged people to go out and vote with the enthusiasm of a Labrador as displayed by her dog with its friends.
It’s election day and the dog and her dog friends urge you to get out and vote with the optimism of a Labrador pic.twitter.com/eGC4mfrQon
My colleague Nimo Omer has been at the helm of our Thursday morning briefing email today, and has this to say about Rishi Sunak’s election campaign:
Despite trying to hammer home their central message (LABOUR WILL TAX YOU!), the moments everyone has remembered are actually Rishi Sunak’s self-inflicted gaffes.
A defining moment of the campaign that dogged the prime minister for weeks – a lifetime in a six-week campaign – was his decision to leave the D-day commemorations early to get back to London for an ITV interview. “In focus groups, when people were asked what they noticed, they remembered the rain announcement and D-day,” the Guardian’s senior political correspondent, Peter Walker says. There was no explaining it away and even though the prime minister apologised, “it looked pretty bad”. Another political headache for the beleaguered prime minister was the betting scandal, initially revealed by the Guardian, which followed Sunak everywhere he went.
A material roadblock to an effective on-the-ground campaign has been that much infrastructure is not there any more. A local party official effectively told Peter a few weeks ago that there was no one to campaign in their marginal seat. “They have lost many, many local councillors over the last few elections that would have been door-knocking for them,” he says. “There’s hardly anyone left”.
The Conservative campaign has also been surprisingly defensive, particularly in the last few weeks. Sunak has visited what would normally be considered ultra-safe seats.
Rishi Sunak hasn’t posted to social media since polls opened, but he did post a series of messages in an hourly countdown to “stop the Labour supermajority”, suggesting among other things that Labour intend to raise taxes, scrap exams, demolish the green belt and “tax you just for driving”.
Labour would scrap exams and tax working families by £2094.
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