Last main ballot replace reveals Labour’s majority dropping barely

A last major poll update this afternoon showed Labour’s predicted majority dropping slightly to 270 seats as the general election entered its final hours.

An updated ‘MRP’ projection by Survation showed Sir Keir Starmer‘s party winning 470 seats, with the Tories reduced to 68 MPs in the House of Commons, just slightly ahead of the Liberal Democrats on 59.

Nigel Farage‘s Reform UK were on course to win 15 seats, nudging them one MP ahead of the SNP to likely become the UK’s fourth-largest party.

The predicted Conservative result was a slight improvement on Survation’s previous MRP study, with Labour’s projected result marginally downgraded.

Many Britons are expected to cast their votes on their way home from work this evening as polling stations remain open until 10pm. 

The Tories claimed a higher-than-expected turnout already today had left them with a ‘MUCH better chance’ than polls have suggested.

An email to Conservative supporters, signed from the ‘CCHQ Data Team’, read: ‘We’re getting reports from our teams on the ground. And the more reports we get, the more it looks like turnout is higher than expected.

‘That means we could have a MUCH better chance than polls have suggested. So if you haven’t voted yet, now’s the time to get out.’

Queues of people were seen at polling stations on Thursday as the requirement for voters to bring correct photo identification – such as a passport or driving licence – was enforced at a UK general election for the first time.

There was a bungle at a Glasgow polling station this morning as voters were met with posters listing the wrong instructions, which erroneously advised the ranking of candidates in order of preference.

This is how ballots are cast in local elections in Scotland, which use the single transferable vote system. But general elections use the first-past-the-post system, which requires voters to put a single ‘X’ next to their chosen candidate.

Glasgow City Council explained the error was spotted ‘very soon’ after the polling station opened at 7am and the posters were replaced with the correct information. It said no-one had been disenfranchised as voters’ first preferences would be used from the affected ballots.

Cabinet minister Kemi Badenoch this afternoon blasted her own local council for having ‘potentially disenfranchised’ thousands of postal voters who did not receive their ballot papers.

The Business Secretary hit out at Uttlesford District Council for ‘forgetting’ to send postal votes to 2,600 people in her North West Essex seat.

Prior to polls opening this morning, Rishi Sunak made an 11th-hour plea for voters to prevent a ‘socialist supermajority’ wrecking Britain, as he repeated his warning against handing Sir Keir ‘unchecked’ power. 

The Prime Minister continued his campaigning against a predicted Labour landslide with a series of overnight social media posts right up until the opening of polling stations.

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In his final campaign rally last night, the PM admitted he was the ‘underdog’ but vowed: ‘This underdog will fight to the final whistle.’

Mr Sunak and his wife Akshata Murty were spotted voting early this morning at Kirby Sigston Village Hall in his Richmond and Northallerton constituency in Yorkshire.

Sir Keir voted later as he attended a polling station together with his wife Victoria in their Holborn and St Pancras constituency in north London. They arrived hand-in-hand at Willingham Close TRA Hall in Kentish Town.

Mr Farage was seen driving through Clacton, the Essex seaside constituency where he is hoping to be elected the local MP, in an old military vehicle as he rallied the final support for his campaign.

A final Ipsos poll of the election campaign showed Labour dropping five percentage points in a week – although the Tories continued to languish at their lowest-ever level.

The survey put Sir Keir’s party on a 37 per cent vote share – giving Labour an 18-point lead over the Conservatives, who were unchanged on 19 per cent.

Despite Labour’s support falling to its lowest level since 2021, the pollster said Sir Keir would enter Downing Street tomorrow with a ‘healthy majority’ amid wider expectations of a landslide win for the party.

The Tories’ vote share remained at its lowest in Ipsos records since the late 1970s, with the party’s woes compounded by Reform attracting the support of 15 per cent of voters.

The research showed a quarter (25 per cent) of voters who backed the Conservatives in 2019 had now switched to Mr Farage’s party.

Both Ipsos and Survation carried out their final polling between Monday and yesterday evening, prior to millions of Britons heading out to decide Britain’s fate today between 7am and 10pm.

Gideon Skinner, senior director of UK politics at Ipsos, said: ‘Labour look set to enter government with a healthy majority, and with a clear lead over the Conservatives as they try to take advantage of the public mood for change.

‘However, the final outcome is still not set in stone, with relatively high numbers still saying they may change their mind, even in the last few days before the vote, and with the potential for lower turnout but high tactical voting all adding to the uncertainty.

‘Labour has overcome many doubts amongst the public about their readiness for government, but are finishing the campaign with the public still restraining their enthusiasm.’

Writing in the Daily Mail today, Mr Sunak urged disaffected Tory voters considering staying at home or voting for Reform UK to lend their votes to the Conservatives again to stop Sir Keir.

Mr Sunak acknowledged that people are ‘frustrated with me, with our party’ after a tough period in which Britain has been hit by Covid and the fallout from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

But he warned that todays’ election will have ‘lasting consequences’ if it produces a landslide which would embolden Labour to raise taxes ‘even further’.

‘I need your vote to defend our vision of Britain: to back lower taxes, controlled borders and a secure future for our country,’ the PM wrote.

‘Join with us and we can make a difference and stop the socialist supermajority.’

Polls suggest that up to half the voters who backed the Conservatives in 2019 could desert them today, with some backing Reform, some staying at home and others even backing the Lib Dems or Labour.

Mr Sunak pointed to analysis suggesting that as few as 130,000 voters in key seats could change the course of the election, and said that a ‘huge number of seats in this election will be decided by a few hundred votes’.

In his final campaign speech last night, Mr Sunak said his experience as a Southampton football fan had taught him ‘that the game isn’t over until the final whistle goes and that there’s fight in the underdog’.

Cabinet ministers are reportedly urging Mr Sunak to stay on as Tory leader if he loses the election to ensure there is an ‘orderly transition’ to a new leader.

It comes amid fears a devastating election result could spark bitter infighting within Conservative ranks.

Labour were last night accused of secretly plotting a raid on council tax after their Treasury deputy-in-waiting said he understands the ‘frustration’ of not making richer people pay more.

Darren Jones, in line to be number two at the Treasury under a Labour government, told a constituency meeting in Bristol in May the current system was ‘very out of date’, blaming a ‘capitalist democracy’.

As one of the 17 taxes Labour have been unable to rule out, shadow minsters have been repeatedly pushed on their plans to reevaluate council tax but have failed to say they would not raise the tax.

The party has only ruled out increases to income tax, national insurance and VAT – but has refused to explicitly rule out any others.

But Mr Jones, currently shadow chief secretary to the Treasury, said that Labour would not be elected if they suggested a revaluation of the charge, a leaked recording of the meeting reveals.

Asked whether those in homes worth more than a million pounds should pay more, he told the meeting he ‘gets the frustration’.

A Labour spokesperson hit out at ‘false, scaremongering nonsense’ on the eve of polls opening.

It came as: 

• A series of mega-polls predicted a Labour landslide, but said that with dozens of seats too close to call, a Tory wipeout could still be averted if supporters turn out;
• A Labour adviser on the economy warned changes to inheritance tax would be ‘on the agenda’ and said pensioners ‘should be taxed at least as hard as those people who are of working age’;
• Sir Keir said he was ‘taking nothing for granted’ before later changing his tune to declare he was ‘ready for government’ and vowed to ‘hit the ground running’;
• He added that there were ‘no circumstances’ in which the UK would join the EU’s single market or customs union in his lifetime;
• Labour’s former deputy leader Harriet Harman was reported to be in the running to take over the equalities watchdog, causing concern among women’s groups.

Mr Sunak was joined by his parents and his wife, Akshata, for his final rally of the election campaign last night.

He stood for a photo with his family after giving a speech at Romsey Rugby Club, north of Southampton where he grew up.

‘This underdog will fight to the final whistle,’ Mr Sunak said during his last speech on the campaign trail.

The PM called on Tory activists to continue campaigning, claiming they had ‘urgent work to do’ to ‘save the UK’ from a Labour government.

Mr Sunak hit the campaign trail in Hampshire at 2pm yesterday, kicking off with a visit to Braishfield Primary School, where Caroline Nokes is the Tory candidate in Romsey and Southampton North.

The PM and Sir Keir have focused their campaigns on very different seats – with Labour targeting ambitious areas which were once considered safe for the Tories.

Mr Sunak has generally stuck to Conservative heartlands – aiming to mitigate the damage on polling day, rather than striving to secure new ground.

Analysis suggests 45 out of 54 seats visited by the Tory leader are Conservative defences, including nine where his party has a notional majority of more than 20,000.

Ahead of his final speech of the campaign, the PM warned Labour could end up in power for ’20 years’ if it wins a supermajority.

Before appearing at Romsey Rugby Club, he told the public: ‘If you vote for anyone other than the Conservatives, you could find yourself with a Labour government not just for five years, but for ten, 15, 20 years.

‘Four years ago, Keir Starmer ran for Labour leader promising to raise income tax on the top 5 per cent of earners, to abolish universal credit, to scrap tuition fees, to nationalise the utility companies, and to defend free movement.

‘Starmer now says he has changed his mind on all these things. But how can you trust someone who changes their mind on so many issues?

‘How do you know that, if it was politically expedient, he wouldn’t just change his mind again on all of these questions?’

Mr Sunak added: ‘His constant U-turns show two things: that he was wrong before. And that he hasn’t even the courage of his own past lack of convictions.’

In his own last speech of the election campaign, Sir Keir encouraged voters to ‘imagine a Britain moving forward together with a Labour government’.

The Labour leader was cheered by activists as he spoke at a community centre in Redditch, Worcestershire.

He said: ‘That’s what we are fighting for, let’s continue that fight. If you want change, you have to vote for it.’

As the bookies’ favourite to be the next prime minister, Sir Keir Starmer said he was pleased with Labour’s campaign and his party was ‘ready for what comes next’.

He told reporters on his flight from Scotland to Worcestershire: ‘When I took over as leader of the Labour Party the optimists said it will take 10 years to fix this party and get it back. The pessimists said you are never going to be in government again.

‘We had a three-part strategy, we stuck to it and here we are, the day before the election, in a reasonably good position going into the opening of polls at 7 o’clock tomorrow morning.

‘So I’m pleased, I’m confident in the hard work that we have done and we are ready for what comes next if the country puts their trust and confidence in us.’

Reform leader Nigel Farage ended his campaign with a rally at the pier in Clacton, the Essex seat he is hoping to win.

He entered the event on an army vehicle to the tune of Without Me by Eminem, before leading supporters in a chant of ‘we want our country back’.

Mr Farage’s vehicle drove through the crowds before reversing, narrowly avoiding contact with a woman on a mobility scooter.

His supporters booed when Mr Farage referenced Mr Sunak, referring to him as ‘slippery Rishi’.

He said: ‘He tells you that for low taxes, he tells you therefore reduced immigration, but they promise that in the last four manifestos, so why the hell should we believe them on the fifth?’

Mr Farage sarcastically called Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer ‘one of the great charisma-filled characters of the 21st century’, saying ‘talk about boring, God help us’.

He said today’s general election was the ‘tip of the iceberg’ for Reform, saying: ‘My aim and ambition over the next few years is to turn this into a massive grass roots movement of millions of people.’ 

Mr Farage added: ‘This is the first step of a new political movement, but this is not just about winning seats in Parliament, which we will, it’s about forming an opposition to a Starmer led government with a big majority.

‘The Conservatives can’t do that. They say split, they’re so divided and frankly, I think pretty devoid of talent.’

Mr Farage told GB News last night that it was ‘very possible’ his party could get six million votes today. 

Ending a campaign that was dominated by headline-catching stunts, Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey drove off in a pink Cadillac convertible with his deputy Daisy Cooper after his last election campaign stop.

The Lib Dem leader gave a stump speech at Hammond’s End Farm in Harpenden to the tune of ABBA’s Take A Chance On Me.

Sir Ed said he had enjoyed the campaign, which saw him travel the entire length of the UK, travel 6,000 miles on the Lib Dem’s Yellow Hammer One bus and bungee 160 feet.

But he added: ‘Communities are angry. The water companies have been allowed to pour their filthy sewage into our rivers, lakes and onto our beaches. This has to change. The Conservatives have got to go.’

Not all types of photo ID will be accepted at polling stations today, but a passport, driving licence or blue badge are valid.

Other forms of permitted ID include an Older Person’s or Disabled Person’s Bus Pass or an Oyster 60+ card, the new free Voter Authority Certificate, and an identity card bearing the Proof of Age Standards Scheme hologram (a Pass card).

Craig Westwood, director of communications at the Electoral Commission, said: ‘This is the first time at a UK general election where voters will need to show photographic ID before they can receive their ballot paper.

‘Bringing an accepted form of ID means your voice can be heard at the ballot box.

‘Before heading to the polling station, check to make sure that you have the ID you need to vote. It needs to be an original version, copies and pictures won’t be accepted.

‘If you don’t remember your ID when you arrive at a polling station, you can return with it later in the day. Anyone in a queue at 10pm will be able to cast their vote.’