Labour has won back a string of key ‘red wall’ seats as it looks to rebuild in its former heartlands, taking back Stoke-on-Trent Central, Barrow and Furness, Bishop Auckland, Bolsover, Scunthorpe, Redcar, Whitehaven and Workington, Hartlepool, Darlington, Great Grimsby and Cleethorpes and Cramlington and Killingworth.
Former Redcar MP Anna Turley will return to the Commons, and victory in Hartlepool will be widely welcomed after Labour’s bruising by-election defeat there in 2021. The latter victory also comes in spite of the exit poll suggesting Reform would take the seat.
But former Tory deputy chair Lee Anderson, who defected to Reform, became Reform’s first MP in Ashfield, where he once worked for the former Labour MP Gloria de Piero.
In the first Red Wall seat to declare, Cramlington and Killingworth, Labour’s Emma Foody beat Reform UK’s Gordon Fletcher by over 12,000 votes.
Read more of our 2024 general election results coverage (article continues below):
Election night as it happened: Key results unpacked in historic landslide
Labour results tracker: Full list and map of Labour gains, holds, losses, new MPs
‘We did it’: Keir Starmer’s victory speech as Labour crosses key 326 seat line
‘A landslide masks discontent left, right and centre. Labour has its work cut out’
‘What should we look for in Keir Starmer’s cabinet?’
‘Keir Starmer is at the peak of his power. How should he make the most of it?’
The new seat in the north east include most of the now-abolished constituency of Blyth Valley, which had been one of the first red wall seats to fall early on the election night at the 2019 general election.
In Darlington, a harder test and key battleground Labour needed to win, Lola McEvoy beat Conservative Peter Gibson by over 5% of the vote, after the Tory vote collapsed by 15.9%.
Labour also held Blackpool South, won at a recent by-election, with Chris Webb re-elected.
Read more on how the night unfolded:
Liz Truss loses South West Norfolk: Beaten by a lettuce, beaten by Labour
Scotland results: Labour makes big gains as SNP obliterated
Wales results: Labour bags 27 of 32 seats as Tories wiped off the map
Jacob Rees-Mogg: Senior Tory loses seat as Labour mayor Dan Norris wins
Gaza: Jon Ashworth loses in Leicester as independents win Blackburn and Batley
Islington North: Jeremy Corbyn holds on in strong result over Labour
Nuneaton, Stevenage, Swindon, Worcester: Labour wins in key bellwether marginals
Read more on what could come next for Labour in power:
Day one: What would happen on Starmer’s first day in charge?
100 days: What would happen during the first 100 days of a Labour government?
Delivering pledges: ‘Change is hard – how can Labour achieve it?’
Manifesto: ‘12 great policies you may never have heard of’
Foreign affairs: ‘Whatever happens to Biden, Starmer faces a US challenge’
Trilemma: IFS warns Starmer will likely have to pick cuts, debt or tax hikes
Read more on how Labour fought this campaign in key battlegrounds:
Aldershot: Can Labour win the ‘Home of the Army’ for the first time in a century?
Bolsover: Labour’s Natalie Fleet on death threats, Dennis Skinner and class today
Brighton Pavilion: Can Labour win the Greens’ one seat?
Bristol Central: Inside Labour’s battle to counter the insurgent Green Party
East Thanet: Inside the battle for coastal ex-UKIP stronghold not won since 2005
Edinburgh endgame: The seat where SNP defeat would signal Labour majority
Dover and Deal: Small boats and Tory mutineers: Can veteran Mike Tapp win?
Finchley and Golders Green: Can Labour win back Britain’s most Jewish seat?
Glasgow South West: Meet the NHS doctor fighting one of Scotland’s tightest marginals
Monmouthshire: ‘Why this CLP is setting the standard in this campaign’
Sheffield Hallam: ‘Can Labour’s Olivia Blake hold on in Nick Clegg’s old seat?’
South West: Could Labour take ‘non-battleground’ Tory seats?
Wimbledon‘s battle of the bar charts: Inside a rare election three-horse race
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