Tories Crushed In Landslide (Low Turnout) UK Election Victory For Labour, Farage’s Reform Party ‘Real Winners’

Update (0730ET): As exit polls suggested, the Labour Party won a landslide victory in the UK election, dramatically reshaping the political landscape after the Conservatives imploded following 14 years of rule that became defined by turmoil.

With only two results outstanding, Keir Starmer’s Labour took 412 of the 650 seats in the House of Commons, the most since Tony Blair’s 1997 triumph (second largest since WWII) and a remarkable turnaround less than five years since being trounced at the last election. The Tories garnered 121 seats, their worst ever performance.

However, Labour’s victory was based on the backing of only 34% of voters (the lowest-ever winning share) as the populist Reform UK party led by Brexit campaigner Nigel Farage took chunks of the right-wing Conservative vote across the country.

“This looks more like an election the Conservatives have lost than one Labour have won,” pollster Sir John Curtice told the BBC.

Indeed, as Morning Porridge’s Bill Blain wrote this morning, Labour got 3 times as many seats, but did not win – the Conservatives lost, and lost badly, punished by the electorate. Reform were the real winners – although they only got 4 seats.