News|Elections

UK general election: All the latest updates

The latest news as the results come in for the UK general election.

Published On 9 Jun 2017

All the latest developments for the snap general election that comes as the UK prepares for difficult Brexit negotiations. All times local (GMT 1).

11:55 – May to form new government with Northern Ireland’s Democratic Unionist Party

  • After meeting the queen, Theresa May says she will form a government to provide stability and lead Britain out of the EU.

  • Speaking outside her official Downing Street residence, the prime minister says she can rely in parliament on the support of her “friends” in Northern Ireland’s Democratic Unionist Party after her ruling Conservatives failed to win a majority.

  • “We will continue to work with our friends and allies in the Democratic Unionist Party in particular,” she said.

  • “Our two parties have enjoyed a strong relationship over many years and this gives me the confidence to believe that we will be able to work together in the interests of the whole United Kingdom.”

11:25 – May heads to Buckingham Palace

  • British Prime Minister Theresa May leaves Downing Street for Buckingham Palace to seek permission from Queen Elizabeth II to form a minority government.

11:09 – Results mean ‘rejection of hard Brexit’

  • Irish Prime Minister-designate Leo Varadkar: “The results of the UK election indicate to me that there is no strong mandate to proceed with a hard Brexit, which represents an opportunity for Ireland.”

10:08 – British pound dives

  • The shock British election has hit British pound on Friday and left the dollar on course for its best week in over a month.
  • The pound dived from $1.2959 to $1.2674 after it was confirmed the Conservatives had lost their majority. It also sank almost two percent against the euro.

09:57 – Labour MP: May lost referendum on herself

09:49 – UKIP leader Nuttall resigns

  • UK Independent Party leader Paul Nuttall announces resignation, saying that a new era must begin for the party after vote collapses.
 
 

09:18 – May to seek permission to form government

  • Prime Minister Theresa May will visit Buckingham Palace at 11:30 GMT to seek permission from Queen Elizabeth II to form a minority government, Downing Street says.

07:49 – Corbyn: Winner is clear

  • Jeremy Corbyn, the leader of the Labour Party, said it was pretty clear who won Thursday’s election, adding that says he is “waiting to serve” the country.
  • Corbyn told Sky News: “They’re going to have to go ahead because Article 50 has been invoked, the government in office in 11 days time will have to conduct those Brexit negotiations.”
  • “Our position is very clear, we want a jobs-first Brexit, therefore the most important thing is the trade deal with Europe,” he added.

07:31 – Social media reacts to election results 

  • “Shock” runs through British social media on Thursday and Friday as polling showed major gains for the main opposition Labour Party and loss of seats for the Conservative Party. Read our story here.

07:20 – Larry the cat faces media after election

06:48 – ‘Time is ticking for Brexit’

  • German Deputy Foreign Minister Michael Roth: “We need to get started on the negotiations [on Brexit] as soon as possible because time is ticking.” 
  • “Regardless of the question of who will form a government in Britain, time is ticking … We have less than two years to negotiate the exit … so we should not waste any time now,” Roth told German broadcaster ZDF.

06:18 – ‘This is a disaster for Theresa May’

  • SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon: “This has been a disaster for Theresa May. She called an election clearly very arrogantly thinking she was going to crush the opposition, sweep everybody aside and cruise to a landslide majority. Her position, I think, is very, very difficult.”
  • “I’m disappointed at the SNP losses but I’m pleased that we’ve won the election,” Sturgeon also said.
 
 

05:35 – Citi: Uncertainty ahead

  • Citi said that British Prime Minister Theresa May was likely to resign after she failed to win a majority in the election.
  • “A period of political uncertainty lies ahead,” multinational financial services company said in a research note on Friday.

05:29 Ed Miliband: May cannot negotiate Brexit

05:17 – JPMorgan: Brexit talks might be delayed

  • Britain may have to delay Brexit talks in the absence of a majority for Prime Minister Theresa May’s Conservative Party, financial services company JPMorgan said.
  • “[UK might need] to request a delay in the Brexit process, given the chance that political developments in the UK disturb what is already a time-compressed process,” said Malcolm Barr, economist at JPMorgan, in a research note on Friday.
 
 

04:51 – Tories fail to secure absolute majority

  • The Conservative Party has failed to gain an absolute majority in parliament after Thursday’s election, according to the Reuters news agency. 

  • With votes from nearly all 650 constituencies counted, the Tories has won merely 308 seats, failing to secure required 326 seats, while the Labour Party secures 258 seats.

04:29 – The results so far – 538 of 650 seats

  • Conservatives 246 (-9), Labour 228 ( 25), SNP 33 (-19), Lib Dems 10 ( 4), Democratic Unionist Party 10 ( 2), Sinn Fein 7 ( 3), Plaid Cymru 3, Others 1, Greens 0, UKIP 0 (-1).

  • Conservatives are set to be the largest party in parliament but short of an overall majority, according to exit poll projections.

  • Exit poll suggests the standing of the parties will be Conservatives 314, Labour 266, SNP 34, Lib Dems 14, Plaid Cymru 3, UKIP 0, Greens 1, Others 18.

03:32 – May pledges stability, Corbyn calls for her to step down

  • Conservative leader Theresa May said that if her party wins the most seats and most votes, “it will be incumbent on [the Conservatives] to ensure that stability”.

  • Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn said: “The prime minister called the election because she wanted a mandate. Well the mandate she’s got is lost Conservative seats, lost votes, lost support and lost confidence. I would have thought that is enough for her to go actually.”

03:25 – Labour takes key Croydon Central from Conservatives

  • Labour regarded the seat as a must-win. It had lost the 2015 contest by just 165 votes.

03:15 – Over half the seats declared

  • With 343 out of 650 seats declared, the Conservatives remain on course to be largest party – but short of a majority.

  • Kieran Pedley, an analyst with GFK Market Research, told Al Jazeera that Labour has made impressive gains in southern marginals, but that was offset to an extent by some Tory gains in Scotland.

  • “May didn’t have to call this election,” said Pedley. “She called it because she expected to win and win big. Now that doesn’t seem like it’s going to happen, the knives are going to be out for her.”

02:50 – Nick Clegg loses seat to Labour

  • Labour gain Sheffield Hallam from the former deputy prime minister and former leader of the Liberal Democrats.

  • Labour win with 21,881 votes. Nick Clegg beaten into second with 19,756.

  • Former Business Secretary Vince Cable wins back his Twickenham seat for the Liberal Democrats from the Conservatives.

02:28 – Scottish National Party loses seats

  • Angus Robertson, who led the SNP in the British parliament, loses to Conservative Douglas Ross in Moray, northeast Scotland.

  • Tories also win Ochil and South Perthshire from SNP. 

  • Labour have taken two seats from the SNP: Rutherglen and Hamilton West and Midlothian.

  • The losses are a blow to Nicola Sturgeon’s SNP, which had a near clean sweep in Scotland in 2015.


01:40 – Labour wins Battersea from the Conservatives

  • Labour’s Marsha de Cordova wins with 25,292 votes, defeating the Conservative minister Jane Ellison who bagged 22,876.

01:25 – The story so far

  • Results declared: Labour 21 (-1), Conservatives 8, Lib Dems 0, SNP 0 (-1), Plaid Cymru 0, UKIP 0, Greens 0, Others 1.

  • Early results have historically favoured the Labour Party.

  • The exit poll suggests the Conservatives will be the largest party in parliament but would be short of an overall majority.

  • Exit poll suggests the standing of the parties will be Conservatives 314, Labour 266, SNP 34, Lib Dems 14, Plaid Cymru 3, UKIP 0, Greens 1, Others 18.

01:00 – Labour holds Darlington – a key Conservative target

  • Labour holds with 22,681 votes. The Conservatives are second with 19,401.

  • Labour and the Tories both up eight points on 2015, a swing from Labour to the Conservatives of 0.2 percent.

  • Al Jazeera’s Barnaby Phillips says that the Conservatives were hoping to win seats like Darlington – which had a narrow Labour majority and voted strongly in favour of Brexit: “[This loss] suggests at the very least that Theresa May’s desired landslide is fast-disappearing over the horizon.”

00:35 – Conservatives hold Nuneaton, seen as a bellwether seat

  • The party that wins Nuneaton has won the general election in seven of the last eight contests.

00:18 – Sinn Fein will not take up seats in parliament

  • Northern Ireland’s nationalist Sinn Fein will maintain its policy of not taking seats in parliament, says the party’s president Gerry Adams – which will cut the number of seats needed to win a majority.

  • If Sinn Fein, as expected, at least retains the four seats it won in 2015, the winning party would need 324 seats for a majority, rather than 326.

Friday 00:09 – Labour cautiously optimistic at Croydon Central 

  • At the count for Croydon Central, which the Conservatives won in 2015 by just 165 votes, Labour campaigners are expressing cautious optimism, reports Al Jazeera’s Shafik Mandhai.
  • Councillor Mark Watson for the Addiscombe ward told Al Jazeera: “We had a lot of people out on the doorsteps making sure that our supporters who said they were going to turn up, turned up.”
The count for Croydon Central - one of the tightest marginals. Tories beat Labour here by 165 votes in 2015 [Shafik Mandhai/Al Jazeera]
The count for Croydon Central – one of the tightest marginals. Tories beat Labour here by 165 votes in 2015 [Shafik Mandhai/Al Jazeera]

23:53 – ‘Very difficult’ to join coalition – Liberal Democrats

  • “[Party leader] Tim Farron made it very clear. He said no pact, no deal, no coalition,” former leader Menzies Campbell told the BBC.

  •  “We’ve had our fingers burnt by coalition,” said Campbell, referring to his party’s deal with the Conservatives after the 2010 election. 

  • Exit polls suggest the Liberal Democrats will increase their number of seats from eight to 14.

23:02 – First seat declared: Labour win Newcastle Central

  • Labour’s Chi Onwurah holds her seat in Newcastle-upon-Tyne Central.

  • Onwurah wins a majority of 14,937 (40.27 percent) – up from 12,673 (36.12 percent) in 2015.

  • This is a 2 percent swing to Labour from the Conservatives.

  • This is regarded as a safe seat. Al Jazeera’s Barnaby Phillips, reporting from London, says election experts believe something like 75 seats are too close to call.

22:35 – Labour and Conservatives react to opinion poll

  • Senior Labour Party adviser Emily Thornberry says that if the exit poll is correct then Prime Minister Theresa May should consider resigning: “If this is right, I think she should consider her position. I think she should go. She has manifestly failed.”

  • Mike Kane, Labour MP for Wythenshawe and Sale East, told Al Jazeera: “We’ve only had an exit poll, but this will be one of the greatest reversals in modern British history … and the reputational damage for both the Conservative Party and for Britain in those negotiations is lasting.”

  • Conservative Defence Minister Michael Fallon expressed caution. “Let’s see some actual results to see if this is borne out – this is a projection … These exit polls have been wrong in the past.” 

  • Ben Page, polling analyst for Ipsos Mori, told Al Jazeera that: “The exit poll has been very accurate for the past three elections …. There is a margin of error on those numbers which is about 15 seats either way.”

22:15 – Pound falls sharply after election exit poll

  • The pound lost more than two cents against the dollar within seconds of the exit poll result, falling from $1.2955 to $1.2752.

  • Some investors worry that the lack of a majority for the Conservatives would weaken the next government’s hand in the upcoming Brexit negotiations.

  • Dennis Novy, professor of economics at the University of Warwick, told Al Jazeera that traders are changing their positions and adjusting to the unexpected news: “But this is not a major shift. If you compare this to the [Brexit] referendum last year the pound was down by … over 10 cents very rapidly.”

22:00 – Exit poll: Conservatives largest party – short of a majority

  • The exit poll indicates that the Conservative Party will be the largest party but will lose 17 seats with a projection of 314 seats.

  • This would leave the Conservatives short of the 326 seats needed for a majority.

  • The Labour Party are projected to win 266 seats – a rise of 34 seats.

  • The projections put the Liberal Democrats on 14 seats – an increase of six; SNP 34; Plaid Cymru three; the Green Party one.

  • UKIP is set to lose their only seat. The other parties will account for 18 seats between them.

22:00 – The polls have closed

 
 
 
 

21:45 – Brexit was one of the major issues in election

 
 

21:30 – Is this the NHS election?

  • Around half of the British population consider the future of the NHS to be the most important issue going into the vote.

21:15 – Why does Nuneaton matter?

  • The party that wins the small Midlands town has won the general election in seven of the last eight contests.

21:00 – Croydon Central, Labour’s must-win seat

  • Labour lost the 2015 election by just 165 votes and it needs a win this year to stand any chance of forming a government.

07:00 – Britain goes to polls in heated contest

  • PM Theresa May’s Conservatives hold the lead in opinion polls but Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party is not too far away.

Source: Al Jazeera, News Agencies