General Election 2017: Millions of voters head to the polls
Polling stations are open until 10pm for electors to deliver their verdict on who they want to see in Downing Street.
By Jon Craig, Chief Political Correspondent
15:16, UK, Thursday 08 June 2017
Image:Jeremy Corbyn and Theresa May are battling it out for the keys to Number 10
Around 30 million voters are going to the polls in the General Election called by Theresa May just over seven weeks ago.
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Polling stations all over the UK are open until 10pm on Thursday, with the results being declared overnight and throughout Friday.
Image:Theresa May and her husband Philip voted at their polling station in Sonning, Berkshire
With the campaigning over, party leaders have been casting their votes.
Polling day follows a frantic dash for votes in the final 24 hours of campaigning by the Prime Minister, Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn and the Liberal Democrat leader Tim Farron.
:: Tight security as voters head to the polls
Mrs May campaigned across England in five constituencies; in London, Southampton, Norfolk, Nottinghamshire and Birmingham.
Image: Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn exercised his vote in Islington, north London
Mr Corbyn made six campaign visits, to Glasgow, Runcorn, Colwyn Bay, Watford and Harrow before ending up in Islington, north London.
Mr Farron also clocked up six visits, to Solihull, St Albans, Twickenham, Carshalton, Bath and Oxford.
But many voters have already cast their vote. It is estimated that by the time the polls close about one in five of the electorate will have cast a postal vote.
:: Vote 2017: When will you know the result?
This is the first time since 1992 that a General Election has been a stand-alone event without local elections being held on the same day, which should speed up counting on Thursday night.
It is also the first UK General Election where campaigning has been halted by terrorist attacks. It was halted for three days after the Manchester bombing last month and for a day after the London Bridge attack.
The vote is taking place amid tight security.
The snap poll was called by the Prime Minister in a shock announcement on 18 April, the day MPs returned to Westminster after Easter.
Image:SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon was joined by her husband Peter Murrell in Glasgow
Some 650 seats in the House of Commons are being contested, 553 in England, 59 in Scotland, 40 in Wales and 18 in Northern Ireland. To win an overall Commons majority, a party needs to win 326 seats.
At the last General Election in 2015, David Cameron won a majority of 12 for the Conservatives after five years leading a Coalition government with the Liberal Democrats. Turnout in 2015 was 66.2%.
Image:Tim Farron waves to the cameras before casting his vote
The Conservatives won 37.7% of the votes and 331 seats, Labour 31.2% and 232 seats, UKIP 12.9% and one seat and the Liberal Democrats 8.1% and eight seats.
But Mr Cameron then quit as Prime Minister immediately after the UK voted to leave the European Union in a referendum on 23 June last year and he was succeeded by Mrs May last July.
Image:UKIP leader Paul Nuttall emerges from the polling station
In this election there are fewer candidates, 3,306, than in any General Election since 1992, largely because UKIP and the Greens have stood aside in certain constituencies.
UKIP is fighting 378 seats, 246 fewer than in 2015, and the Greens 468, 105 fewer than two years ago.
© 2017 Sky UK
Tories on 12-point lead over Labour in ICM's final pre-general election poll
Friday’s result will depend heavily on turnout among younger voters, who have a strong preference for Jeremy Corbyn
Thursday 8 June 2017 04.38 EDTFirst published on Wednesday 7 June 2017 13.55 EDT
When
Theresa May called her “snap election” seven weeks ago, the polls were showing Labour facing a general election defeat on the scale of Michael Foot’s 1983 disaster when the party was reduced to just 209 MPs.
Her newspaper cheerleaders, including the Sun, were declaring her the “new Maggie” and claiming she had the opportunity to kill off Labour and end its days as a serious electoral force. But, as ICM’s preliminary call on their final poll showed, May goes into election day with a 12-point lead of 46% to Labour’s 34%. This is up from David Cameron’s seven-point victory just two years ago and represents a swing to the
Conservatives of 2.5%.
The ICM results pointed to a Tory majority of 96 on electoral calculus estimates and it is at the higher end of seat predictions, but still short of the landslide many pundits were predicting six weeks ago. “This final poll confirms the pattern that ICM has produced over the last fortnight: a fairly healthy and static Conservative share with consolidation of the
Labour bump first witnessed after the manifesto publication,” said ICM’s Martin Boon.
The 2017 general election explained for non-Brits
The detail of the Guardian/ICM poll confirms
Corbyn’s popularity among younger voters. He enjoys a lead of 66-23 among 18 to 24 year olds and 47-33 among 25 to 33 year olds, but the declared intended turnout of both these groups, at 64% and 70%, is 10 points below other age groups.
Perhaps more importantly, the Conservatives seem to have won the battle of the working class, with an even larger 23-point lead for May among the key skilled working-class C2 voters often found in many marginal swing seats across the Midlands. However, Labour seemed to have halted the Tory advance among unskilled DE voters, where it has regained a modest two-point 38-36 lead.
More disappointing for Labour is that the Tories enjoy a slim one-point lead in the marginal seats it is defending, 45% to 44%.
As the Guardian poll-tracker confirms, the polls have narrowed. Two terror attacks have scarred a tumultuous campaign in which Jeremy Corbyn’s personal ratings rose from a very low base and May’s wooden leadership style dispelled the appetite for Thatcher comparisons.
That volatile campaign has had an impact on the parties’ standings. May and Corbyn go into election day knowing that a landslide Tory victory is now unlikely. Nevertheless, insiders in both parties concede that a healthy 50-plus Conservative majority is the most likely outcome
.
Swing seats: There are 650 constituencies in the UK and over 100 swing seats
In the meantime, the minor parties have been sidelined, with the collapse of Ukip in particular fuelling the expected scale of the Conservative victory.
But as the Southampton University-based
Polling Observatory pointed out, the variation in the size of the lead among the pollsters, from 10 to 12 points on ICM and Comres to 2 to 4 points on Yougov and Survation, is almost wholly down to the different adjustments being applied for turnout, particularly among younger and poorer voters.
The final Times/YouGov poll had the lead widening to 7 points, with the Conservatives on 42% and Labour on 35%, implying a Tory majority of 50 plus.
The preliminary figures for the last ICM poll of the campaign showed that the actual movement in the campaign has been limited. The Tories have gone down from a 48% share of the vote on 24 April to 46% on the eve of the election, while Labour has risen seven points, from 27% to 34%.
These figures imply an electoral calculus majority in the 90s for May and Labour losing up to 33 of its current 229 seats, leaving it worse off than Foot’s 1983 total of 209, despite a higher share of the vote. The Conservatives could gain up to 42 seats, adding to their current total of 330.
Most of that gain has come from the minor parties, with the
Liberal Democrats down 3 points to 7% in the latest poll, Ukip down two to 5% and the Greens down one point to 2%. ICM interviews were continuing through Wednesday before final figures were released.
By contrast, YouGov’s poll published on Wednesday – which does not adjust for lower historic turnouts for younger and poorer voters – put Labour just four points behind on 38% to the Tories’ 42%, which would leave May 24 seats short of an overall majority in a hung parliament.
As for expectations, the ICM poll showed that only one in 10 (12%) of voters expects a Tory majority at the top end of the range of predictions, with a plurality (38%) believing May’s majority will be secured, but only by double figures. Fewer than one in five (17%) expect a hung parliament, with the great optimists being the 7% who think Labour will secure the keys to Downing Street (18% of Labour voters believed that
Jeremy Corbyn would smash it).
Rob Ford and Will Jennings of the Polling Observatory said the upturn in Labour support during the campaign has been on a similar scale to the Lib Dem “Cleggmania” surge in 2010. Clegg’s rise in popularity was concentrated in just six days after his appearance in the televised leaders’ debate and had largely dissipated by the time people got to the polling station. In contrast, Labour rise this time has been steady over a six-week period, although there are concerns that it has largely piled up votes in seats the party already holds. The hopes and aspirations of party strategists are most clearly revealed by the leaders’ final day itineraries. May spent hers touring Southampton, Norwich, Nottinghamshire and the West Midlands before a final rally in Birmingham – all rich with Labour marginal seats up to number 50 on their hit list. Corbyn spent his day in Glasgow, Halton in Cheshire, Colwny Bay, Watford and Harrow, before a final rally in London. Corbyn took in a mixture of seats: some safe Labour, some safe Tory, with one or two marginals that the party is defending among them. But at nearly all he was greeted by an enthusiastic crowd of supporters.
Tim Farron was scheduled to spend his final day in Lib Dem targets including Solihull, St Albans, Twickenham (their top targe), Bath and Oxford, as well as Tom Brake’s seat in Carshalton, where a local council bin crisis has hit his chances of holding his seat.
Election polls tracker 2017: Survation has Labour almost level with Tories
The election has proved as much a test for the pollsters as the politicians. The wide spread in Tory leads underpinned by a different approach in methods means that some polling companies will face acute embarrassment on Friday morning. Whatever the result, public confidence is unlikely to rise in a polling industry that has had more than its fair share of misses in recent years.
ICM Unlimited interviewed a representative online sample of 1,532 British adults aged 18+ on 6-7 June 2017. Interviews were conducted across the country and the results have been weighted to the profile of all adults. ICM is a member of the British Polling Council and abides by its rules.