UK election: What’s happened, and what comes next

The Labour Party has won a landslide victory in the UK general election, sweeping hundreds of seats across the country and ending 14 years of Conservative rule.

Sir Keir Starmer is set to be appointed prime minister later on Friday, ending an era which has seen five different Conservative leaders running the country.

Rishi Sunak, the outgoing PM, conceded at around 04:40 in the morning, acknowledging Labour had won and saying that he had called Sir Keir to congratulate him.

In his victory speech minutes later, the Labour leader promised “national renewal” and that he would put “country first, party second”.

“We have earned the mandate to relight the fire,” he told Labour activists in a victory speech. “Our task is nothing less than renewing the ideas that hold this country together.”

The result marks a stunning reversal from the 2019 election when Labour, led by the veteran left-wing politician Jeremy Corbyn, suffered its worst electoral defeat in almost a century.

On the other side, Robert Buckland, a former Conservative minister who lost his seat, described it as “electoral Armageddon” for the Tories.

It is expected to be the party’s worst result in almost 200 years, with a battle over the future direction of the party likely to commence in the coming days.

It’s been a long night of results and there’s plenty more action to come. Here’s what’s happening, and what it all means.