The leader of the Tories in the Senedd, the Welsh parliament, Andrew RT Davies, has expressed anger at the timing of the election. The chair of the party in Wales, Tomos Dafydd Davies, has suggested the Tories need to develop a “robust brand” of their own in Wales.
Craig Williams, who was embroiled in the scandal over the placing of bets on the date of the election, may just win in Montgomeryshire and Glyndŵr. However the Tories withdrew support from him so he will sit as an independent.
It isn’t all good news for Labour. The exit poll suggests its share of the vote in Wales is down by 2%, perhaps a sign that controversies that have swirled around first minister Vaughan Gething is cutting through.
Plaid Cymru has had a good campaign with the profile of its leader, Rhun ap Iorwerth, boosted by impressive appearances on television and radio debates and interviews. But its members are playing down its prospects, believing it may end up with only two MPs. It had hoped for four.
Reform UK is not expected to win any seats in Wales but it thinks its vote share will be large in some areas, which could provide it with a foothold for the 2026 Senedd elections when there will be a proportional representation rather than first past the post.
Labour in the seats so far declared is 11%, the party is on course to win some seats where it will need of up to 18, 19, 20% to win.
Liberal Democrats have listed some of the seats they are confident of winning tonight. They are: Torbay; North Cornwall; Yeovil; Eastleigh; Wimbledon; Woking; Guildford; South Cambridgeshire; Cheadle; Hazel Grove; Wokingham; Lewes and Tunbridge Wells.
They say the Liberals have not won Tunbridge Wells since 1906. At the last election the Tories were on 55% and the Lib Dems 28%. The boundaries have not changed.
Labour source.
Corbyn is standing as an independent candidate.
11.46pm.) In the speech at his count following his defeat by Labour’s Heidi Alexander (a former MP for Lewisham East, who left parliament in 2018 to take a job with Sadiq Khan), Robert Buckland, the former justice secretary, implied that people like Johnson were part of the problem. He said:
Our very political system is at a crossroads. Do we value those who work to bring people together and who come into politics to do something rather than be someone? Or do we shrug our shoulders and accept that politics is a media circus where people compete for attention by saying things that they either know to be untrue, or which raise hopes and expectations in a way that further erodes trust?
I know what side I’m on. I know what choice I would make. And I believe with sincere and fierce conviction that my party has to make the right choice too if we are to inspire a new generation with the real promise of a better future.
Buckland did not say anything like this when he was serving in Johnson’s cabinet. And his concerns about politicians making unrealistic promises did not stop him switching his support from Rishi Sunak to Liz Truss in the summer of 2022, a decision that led to him being retained in cabinet as Welsh secretary.
In an interview with the BBC a moment ago, asked who he was referring to in his speech, Buckland did not name anyone, but he criticised colleagues writing newspaper articles implying disloyalty during the campaign.
When it was put to him that he was talking about Suella Braverman, who wrote an article in the Telegraph this week saying the party was on course to lose, Buckland did not deny that.
Reform UK has come second. In all three, the Brexit party (the predecessor party of Reform UK) came third last time, behind the Tories.
And their share of the vote has risen sharply.
In Houghton and Sunderland, a 16% Brexit party vote in 2019 has become a 29% Reform UK vote.
In Blyth and Ashington, a 9% Brexit party vote in 2019 has become a 27% Reform UK vote.
And in Sunderland Central, a 12% Brexit party vote has become a 27% Reform UK vote.
Conservatives.Labour which used to dominate the city before 2015.
Labour volunteers say they have been surprised by the number of votes for Reform showing in Glasgow north while Conservatives are dismissing exit polls suggestions that the party might double its six seats in Scotland, saying it didn’t even target some of them.
he would stay on as leader for a period to provide stability while the party assesses the way forward. Some Tories are hoping he will do this, following the example of Michael Howard, whose decision to hang on for six months after the 2005 election, overseeing changes to the leadership election process and a lengthy leadership contest, was generally seen as good for the party.
But Tim Shipman, the Sunday Times’ chief political commentator, has told Times Radio he thinks Sunak will resign on Friday. This is from Calum Macdonald at Times Radio.
. @ShippersUnbound tells @TimesRadio‘s Election night that his understanding is that Rishi Sunak will announce his resignation as Conservative leader on Friday morning
At the last leadership contest, following the resignation of Liz Truss, the Conservative 1922 Committe imposed a threshold saying any candidate would need to be nominated by 100 MPs to go forward to the ballot of members. This was designed to avoid the need for ballot of members. Sunak passed the threshold, Boris Johnson reportedly passed the threshold, but pulled out, and Sunak was elected unopposed.
If the Tories do get only 131 seats, as the exit poll suggests, then it would be impossible for more than one candidate to pass the 100-MP threshold. If the Tories want their members to have the final say, the rules will need a rethink.
Reform UK, said it is an “historic moment” after the exit polls predicted his party gaining 13 seats.
“I think what you’re seeing is the shy ‘Reformers’ coming out in droves,” Bull told the BBC.
Rightwingers in the Conservative party think a major cause of the party’s defeat was the decision to get rid of Boris Johnson, and Jacob Rees-Mogg, who was leader of the Commons and then Brexit minister under Johnson, became one of the first Tories to make that case tonight.
Speaking on the BBC, he said it had been “a terrible night” for the party.
Asked what went wrong for the party, Rees-Mogg said there were “issues with changing the leader”. He went on:
Voters expect the prime minister they have chosen to remain the prime minister and for it to be the voters who decide when that person is changed …
I’m afraid I think the Conservative party took it’s core vote for granted, which is why you see so many people who may have voted Conservative previously, going off to Reform.
Source: theguardian.com
