![Sir Keir Starmer spoke to a jubilant crowd after being declared as the new Prime Minister](/https/www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/politics/2024/07/05/TELEMMGLPICT000384463209_17201522388310_trans_NvBQzQNjv4Bq8BGcGB0fWPmYiKUNlQpYc9wCZj1EAmI2ZoV4Ww8XF1k.jpeg?imwidth=680)
Starmer will become new PM as Labour landslide wipes out Tories
Sunak says ‘I am sorry’ as Conservatives lose host of star names in defeat that became a bloodbath
![Sir Keir Starmer spoke to a jubilant crowd after being declared as the new Prime Minister](/https/www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/politics/2024/07/05/TELEMMGLPICT000384463209_17201522388310_trans_NvBQzQNjv4Bq8BGcGB0fWPmYiKUNlQpYc9wCZj1EAmI2ZoV4Ww8XF1k.jpeg?imwidth=680)
Sir Keir Starmer will become the prime minister after Labour won the general election with a landslide and the Tories suffered a historic wipeout.
Rishi Sunak conceded the election just before 5am, congratulating Sir Keir on his victory and telling Tories who had lost their seats: “I am sorry.”
Labour racked up a string of major gains from the Conservatives as a slew of Cabinet ministers including Grant Shapps, Gillian Keegan and Penny Mordaunt lost their seats.
Liz Truss was defeated in her seat of South West Norfolk, losing narrowly to Labour.
Coming just before 7am, the shock defeat capped off an awful night for the Tories, with Ms Truss becoming the first former prime minister to lose their seat since Alec Douglas-Home in 1966.
The former business secretary Sir Jacob Rees Mogg was a major Labour scalp, losing his seat at 5am - the same time Labour officially obtained a majority by passing the threshold of 326 seats.
The Tories were braced for a terrible night after the exit poll showed Labour was on course to return 410 MPs, with the Conservatives expected to return just 131 seats - a fraction of their 365 MPs in 2019.
It would be the worst result for the Tories in terms of seats in modern history, with Mr Sunak expected to resign.
Reform UK enjoyed a major breakthrough as Nigel Farage won in Clacton, entering Parliament at the eighth attempt. The party had elected four MPs by 5.30am, including former leader Richard Tice.
The Liberal Democrats also had a successful night and were on course to return 61 MPs according to the exit poll, toppling Cabinet ministers including Ms Keegan, Michelle Donelan and Alex Chalk.
Sir Keir will enter No 10 as the seventh Labour prime minister with vast power, with his party on course to secure a huge majority of 170.
Appearing at a victory rally in central London, he said: “Across our country people will be waking up to the news, relieved that a weight has been lifted, a burden finally removed from the shoulders of this great nation.
“And now we can look forward again, walk into the morning, the sunlight of hope, pale at first but getting stronger through the day, shining once again on a country with the opportunity after 14 years to get its future back.”
However, Sir Keir suffered a blow to his authority as his majority in his seat was slashed by almost 60pc by a challenge from a pro-Palestine independent.
He also lost two of his top team.
Jonathan Ashworth, the shadow paymaster general and a key part of the election campaign, lost his Leicester seat to a pro-Palestine independent.
Thangham Debbonaire, the shadow culture secretary, was separately ousted in Bristol as the Greens won their second seat in Parliament.
Other Labour candidates lost to pro-Gaza independents in Dewsbury and Batley and Blackburn - seats with a large number of Muslim voters.
Jeremy Corbyn, the former Labour leader who Sir Keir kicked out of the party, also defied the odds to hang onto his seat as an independent.
Sir Keir, 61, will enter Downing Street on Friday day after a victory that would give him the political space to reshape Britain.
He is likely to herald the victory as a vindication of his modernisation of the Labour Party, which he has pushed towards the centre ground since becoming leader in April 2020.
However, he will likely have a smaller majority and fewer seats than Sir Tony Blair’s 1997 landslide.
Meanwhile, the Tories are on course to suffer the worst result in their history, with Mr Sunak expected to resign as the party’s 14 years in power ends.
A series of Cabinet ministers lost their seats in the early hours as the Conservatives suffered a succession of modern-day Portillo moments.
Mr Shapps was ousted in Welwyn Hatfield shortly after Ms Keegan, the Education Secretary, lost her Chichester seat to the Liberal Democrats.
Alex Chalk, the Justice Secretary, was also ousted in Cheltenham by the Lib Dems whilst Ms Mordaunt, the Commons Leader, lost to Labour in Portsmouth.
In his concession speech, a visibly shaken Mr Shapps blamed infighting for the party’s catastrophic results and urged colleagues to swiftly regroup.
“What is crystal clear to me tonight is that it’s not so much that Labour won this election but rather that the Conservatives have lost it,” he said.
“We’ve tried the patience of traditional Conservative voters with a propensity to create an endless political soap opera out of internal rivalries and divisions which have become increasingly indulgent and entrenched.
“We forgot a fundamental rule of politics that people do not vote for divided parties.”
Sir Robert Buckland, a former justice secretary, also fired a furious broadside at former colleagues as he lost his seat in Swindon.
He warned the party now risked becoming “a group of bald men arguing over a comb”.
As the recriminations began, Baroness Davidson of Lundin Links, the former Scottish Tory leader, said Mr Sunak had run “one of the worst election campaigns in living memory”.
There were few silver clouds for the Tories although Suella Braverman, the former home secretary, and ex-leader Sir Iain Duncan Smith clung on.
A major reason for the Tory demise was the performance of Reform, which enjoyed a breakthrough election after Mr Farage returned as leader.
Mr Farage won convincingly in Clacton to become an MP at the eighth attempt shortly after Lee Anderson held onto his seat in Ashfield, Nottinghamshire.
Richard Tice, the party’s chairman, also won in Boston and Skegness after the exit poll suggested Reform may win as many as 13 constituencies.
Mr Farage vowed: “This is just the first step, I set out with a goal to win millions of votes, to get a bridgehead in Parliament and that’s what we’ve done so I’m very pleased.”
The Liberal Democrats also enjoyed a successful night and were on course to return 61 MPs according to the exit poll, scoring its best result in a century.
Sir Ed Davey’s party seized seats from the Tories across the Blue Wall in the South and is on course to become the third biggest party in Parliament.
He comfortably held onto his seat in Kingston and Surbiton with the largest majority of votes ever secured by a Liberal Democrat MP.
Speaking after his victory Sir Ed hailed the party’s national results as “exceptional”.
However, the Lib Dems were unable to dislodge Jeremy Hunt, who held on in Godalming and Ash.
Meanwhile, a political sea change was forecast in Scotland, with Labour overtaking the SNP – which is predicted to return 10 MPs – as the largest party.
Nicola Sturgeon, the former Scottish first minister, said the result was “not a good night” and “at the grimmer end of the expectations for the SNP”.
The Greens were on course to win four seats, beating the Tories in North Herefordshire and Waveney Valley. Plaid Cymru picked up four seats in Wales, where the Tories lost all their seats.