Sam Hancock
Live page editor

There we have it, the final day of campaigning has officially come to an end, and so has our live coverage - for today.

We'll be back bright and early, though, ready for polling stations to open at 7am. Follow all the latest in our new page here.

A few things until then:

• If you're voting for the first time tomorrow and missed our handy explainer of what to expect - read it here
• For any other queries about how tomorrow will work, we reckon you'll find this helpful
• And until we're back with more live updates and analysis, you can read our main news story about Rishi Sunak and Keir Starmer's final pitches to voters right here

Thanks for sticking with us, goodnight.

The finish line is in sight - tomorrow marks the end of a lengthy election campaign, during which political leaders have zig-zagged across the country (Rishi Sunak and Keir Starmer have visited more than 50 constituencies each), battling it out to win your precious vote.

In just over eight hours' time, the polls will open. But before they do, Sunak and Starmer have issued one final appeal to voters:

Sunak:

"Today is a pivotal moment for the future of our country," the current prime minister says.

He adds he knows how "frustrated" people are following an "extremely difficult" few years, "but the answer is not to usher in a Labour government".

Starmer:

"We cannot afford five more years under the Conservatives. But change will only happen if you vote Labour," the Labour leader says.

"Today is the chance to begin the work of rebuilding Britain with Labour."

The campaign trail has brought us many a staged photo op and plenty of unscripted moments that have caught the eye.

Let's take a look back at some of the most memorable ones here:

Image source, PA Media

Image source, Getty Images

Image source, Reuters

Image source, Reuters

Image source, EPA

Image source, PA Media

Image source, EPA

It's been 42 days since Rishi Sunak stepped into the rain outside No 10 and told the country he was calling a summer general election.

Much has happened since then - here are some of the big issues which have shaped this race:

• D-Day: Rishi Sunak’s decision to leave international commemorations early prompted an apology from the prime minister amid condemnation from opponents and some within Conservatives ranks
• Tax: Perhaps the most discussed issue in this campaign. The Tories accused Labour of plotting rises, while a document obtained by the BBC cast doubt on Sunak’s claim that Labour’s plans would lead to people paying £2,000 more
• Youth vote: There were two major policy commitments which really got young people talking - the Tories’ national service plan and Labour pledging votes for 16 and 17-year-olds
• Gambling: Allegations that people linked to the Conservative Party placed bets on the timing of the election have been one of the most talked about issues in recent weeks
• Labour selection rows: Divisions between the left-wing of the Labour party and its leadership culminated in a public stand-off with long-standing MP Diane Abbott
• Campaign stunts: One party leader has pushed the art of the election campaign stunt to new levels - Liberal Democrat leader Ed Davey. He says he’s used the light-hearted moments to get attention for his policies

• Nigel Farage’s U-turn: His return to the election fray as Reform UK's leader has transformed its fortunes and altered the shape of the race. In recent weeks, it has been hit by controversies around offensive remarks made by some of its would-be MPs
• TV debates: Millions have watched as parties like the SNP, Green Party and Plaid Cymru had their say - often using their moment in the spotlight to land a blow on Labour and the Tories

Image source, Reuters

If you're voting for the first time, it can be daunting to show up at a polling station with no idea how it all works. If that's going to be you tomorrow, here's a quick rundown of what to expect:

When you arrive (and remember, you can find the address of your polling station here, external), there may be a queue. Don't be put off, though, it shouldn't take too long.

Once inside, look for someone at a desk probably with a folder in front of them. They'll be the person checking your name off the list of people registered to vote.

They'll check your ID, hand you your ballot paper and give you instructions on how to fill it out.

Once you've got your ballot paper, head into one of the voting booths. There should be a pencil there for you to use to fill it out.

With your ballot filled out, head over to the ballot box and slip your folded paper inside.

Once that's done, so are you. You can carry on with your day knowing you've done your bit for democracy.

Jacqueline Howard
Live reporter

With our mystical powers of insight (and Google), we can see which questions people around the country have about voting. So, here are some answers:

• What time do polling stations open on Thursday? At 7am and they close at 10pm - you can vote as long as you're in the queue by 10pm
• Where do I vote? At your local polling station - pop your postcode in here, external to find out where that is
• Do I need a polling card to vote? If you're registered to vote, you'll have been sent one but you don't need to take it with you
• Do I need photo ID to vote, and what ID can I use? Yes, everyone voting in person will have to show valid photo ID. There are 22 different kinds that are accepted, all of which you can find the details of here
• What do I need to bring to vote? Just yourself and your ID - you can bring children and dogs, but the latter will have to be tied up outside (we don't encourage tying up the former)
• How do I know if I'm registered to vote? If you've received a polling card in the mail, you're registered to vote. If you'd like to check online, you can do so here, external
• Who can I vote for? In this election, you'll be able to vote for the person who's bidding to represent your area in the House of Commons - you can check who's standing in your constituency here
• Can I take my postal vote to polling station? Yes, unless you live in Northern Ireland. You can find the details of how to do that, and answers to even more questions about voting, here

Sam Hancock
Live page editor

As party leaders head home - or off into the sunset, in Ed Davey's case - after a long six weeks of campaigning, we're going to turn our attention to tomorrow.

How it'll work and what it'll look like, to be precise.

To do that, we're going to answer some key questions - for instance, what are the key timings? What does anyone voting need to know? What does anyone voting need to bring to a polling station?

We'll also look at some highlights of the campaign, including moments that shaped the race for 10 Downing Street and some pictures you may want, but will struggle, to forget.

Let's get into it...

Jessica Parker
Reporting from the Labour campaign

Keir Starmer has said it’s "fantastic" to have discovered he'd been sitting on the same seat that England manager Gareth Southgate had used, on a private plane.

It emerged earlier that the Labour campaign had used the same aircraft that took the England squad to Germany for Euro 2024.

Labour used it today to transport the leader’s team and press pack from Wales to Scotland and then from Scotland to England.

"I didn’t realise until we were on it earlier that it was the England team plane," Starmer told reporters, including me, on board the jet as it flew over the country.

An avid Arsenal fan, Starmer has frequently met supporters at local football clubs during the campaign.

"Every time we’ve come out the tunnel onto the pitch, this is a boyhood dream," he said. "I hope this plane isn’t used for quite a while to bring them back."

Image source, Getty Images

Image source, Reuters

We just brought you some of Rishi Sunak's last campaign speech - now, with almost 10 hours to go until polls open, we've some of Keir Starmer's too.

Taking the opportunity to reiterate Labour's key campaign message of change (as the placards behind him read), he tells supporters in the West Midlands:

Marianna Spring
Disinformation and social media correspondent

Image source, PA Media

A clip falsely purporting to show Labour’s Wes Streeting talking about the war in Gaza, viewed hundreds of thousands of times, has been shared by a network of accounts on X with a record of posting faked clips of politicians.

The group and their tactics were previously exposed by the BBC.

The Labour politician posted on X denouncing the clip as faked., external Some users had spotted it was not real, while others were confused and tagged different accounts to see whether they knew if the audio clip - which was made to sound like a discussion with Streeting while he was out campaigning in his constituency - had actually happened.

While some of the fake clips and comments shared by this group of left-wing accounts on X have been clearly absurd and satirical. Others have falsely portrayed candidates saying politically damaging things, including Streeting.

Social media site X has labelled this clip as manipulated media and linked back to the BBC's reporting in the note attached to the post.

It previously took action against the network smearing UK politicians, removing several accounts and posts following the BBC's initial investigation.

An X spokesperson previously told the BBC: "X has in place a range of policies and features to protect the conversation surrounding elections."

Nick Eardley
Reporting from the Conservatives' campaign in Hampshire

Six weeks of campaigning later…

Rishi Sunak has given his last speech of the campaign to 100 or so Tory activists. Flanked by his wife, Akshata Murty, he tells the crowd:

A 'lacklustre' campaign in Northern Ireland - but plenty up for grabspublished at 20:11 British Summer Time 3 July

20:11 BST 3 July

Sara Girvin
Ireland correspondent

The general election campaign in Northern Ireland has been described as lacklustre – but there are still 18 seats up for grabs, and lots of questions to answer.

Will Sinn Fein emerge as Northern Ireland’s largest party at Westminster for the first time?

Will the Democratic Unionist Party lose any seats to allow Sinn Fein to do so?

And there are interesting seats to watch too.

East Belfast is a box office fight between the DUP leader Gavin Robinson and the leader of the Alliance Party, Naomi Long.

In Foyle, the leader of the Social Democratic and Labour Party, Colum Eastwood, had Northern Ireland’s highest majority in the last general election, but Sinn Fein is mounting a challenge.

(The full list of candidates for both of those constituencies are available here).

Elsewhere, there’s a possibility that the Ulster Unionist Party might have its first MP since 2017.

This election is taking place against a backdrop of boundary changes, and the start of school holidays - making voter turnout a concern.

There are still many unknowns – but all those questions, and more, will be answered by Friday morning.

Image source, Press Eye

Katie Hunter
Reporting from Leith

It's the sixth and final stop of the day for SNP leader John Swinney as he gives a stump speech to campaigners in Leith, Edinburgh.

He's ended the day's campaigning with some familiar themes, including austerity and Brexit.

He described the Conservative government as discredited and damaging but said Labour would continue where the Tories left off.

Swinney claims the election is a done deal in England - but the race between Labour and the SNP in Scotland is too close to call.

Remember John Swinney has only been leader of the SNP and first minister for around eight weeks. He's spent six of those on the campaign trail.

Tomorrow, the voters will give their verdict.

Marianna Spring
Disinformation and social media correspondent

With polling day just hours away, people have been getting in touch to tell me about political content popping up on their social media feeds and group chats - some of which is misleading, fake and out of context.

Lots of it involves similar tactics which have been used online for the last few weeks. So what can you look out for?

Be aware of what’s popping up on your phone, whether its recommended to your feed or in a group chat, and how it confirms or shapes your biases.

The post could be an official adverts paid for by the political parties - they’ll be labelled. Or there’s stuff that’s not paid for - either from the parties’ own accounts or from other users, social media makes young people accidental election influencers.

Sometimes they'll just be opinions - but other times they can be misleading. Like sharing edited pictures, stealing other people's photos - or sharing old videos out of context.

You can check out whether an image or video has been online before using tools like reverse image search.

Is the account run by a political campaign or supporter? Or is it tricky to figure out who is behind the post? I’ve identified lots of profiles accused of being bots - fake accounts. Many are just real voters, others are suspicious and have been removed by the social media companies.

During this campaign, there hasn’t been a tidal wave of deepfakes so far. But there are a few convincing examples - and lots of parody clips. I investigated a network of profiles smearing politicians with deepfaked videos. Then in the comment they’d back it up as real. It was a form of trolling - but it made it even more.

• Here are more tips on how to decode your social media feeds

Sunak not giving up, but contrasts from day one are hard to ignorepublished at 19:42 British Summer Time 3 July

19:42 BST 3 July

Nick Eardley
Reporting from the Conservatives' campaign

Image source, PA Media

Rishi Sunak always faced an uphill struggle in this election campaign. But the contrast between day one and the final day are hard to ignore.

I was with the PM at the start, when he was darting around the UK – trying to get on the front foot promising bold policies.

Today, I'm with him too as he ends the campaign in areas the Conservatives won comfortably in 2019. His main message is warning against a considerable Labour majority.

Among some in the Conservative party, there is a sense of resignation.

Don’t lose site of how extraordinary it is that a cabinet minister – Mel Stride, a close ally of Rishi Sunak – has effectively conceded Labour will win.

There is a strategy here. To try and persuade wavering Tories not to back Reform – for fear of delivering Labour an historic result.

The Tories may also be hoping to encourage complacency among Labour ranks (something Keir Starmer is desperate to avoid).

The prime minister insists he is not giving up hope. But many Conservatives now expect the result to deliver a change of government.

Peter Barnes
BBC political analyst

There has been a small but noticeable narrowing in the polls.

Polls published this week have tended to show the Conservatives gaining a little support whilst Labour has fallen back slightly.

And, in fact, if we compare the polls now with those from the beginning of the campaign both parties have seen their average rating fall but Labour's has dropped a bit more than the Conservatives'.

This shouldn't be exaggerated. Labour still has a commanding lead of about 18 points on average.

Reform UK are in third place - the rise we saw in support for them during the middle of the campaign has stalled in the final two weeks.

The Liberal Democrats are above where they started the campaign. The Greens, SNP and Plaid Cymru have been pretty stable throughout.

More polls could still be published, but any that come out on Thursday won't be included in the BBC poll tracker. Like other broadcasters, the BBC has to abide by strict rules on how elections are reported on polling day.

Tom Symonds
Reporting from the Lib Dem campaign bus

Image source, Reuters

The Liberal Democrats’ leader Sir Ed Davey has completed a 1,300-mile road trip from John O’Groats to Land’s End, keeping up a gruelling schedule of stunts and photo opportunities.

With sparklers and glitter guns, the yellow battle bus rolled into a farm in Hertfordshire, greeted by activists. Sir Ed Davey gave a speech, swapped to a pink Cadillac with his deputy Daisy Cooper, and was gone.

His carnival of fun - the antics on paddleboards, roller coasters and bungee jumps - was carefully designed to get media attention for the UK’s fourth political party. It worked.

But there’s another strategy at play, according to party strategists I’ve been talking to on the Lib Dem battle bus.

The Lib Dems want the introduction of the proportional representation voting system because the number of seats they would get would be more closely aligned to the share of their vote.

In the last election they only got 11, increased to 15 by the end of the parliament, through by-election wins.

A few years ago they decided on a different strategy, which accepts that the important metric of success is seats, not the percentage of people prepared to vote for the party.

Effectively they decided to play the existing first past the post electoral system at its own game.

They’ve targeted around 90 constituencies where the party is thought to be in second place - mainly Conservative seats in the South and West of England, with the aim of getting more MPs for their share of the vote.

Will it work? I sense a cautious confidence among senior Lib Dems that this election will be a game changer for them. They’ll never admit it on camera or in front of a microphone.

Image source, Reuters

Continuing his final day of campaigning in Clacton (see our last post for more), Nigel Farage later appeared before a crowd in an army vehicle - having ridden in to the tune of Without Me by the rapper Eminem.

If you're not familiar with that song, some of the lyrics include: "Guess who's back, back again? Shady's back, tell a friend."

He asked the crowd how Clacton was "getting on for dentists" and then referenced small boats crossing the Channel - a key issue in Reform UK's manifesto - telling them: "You should have come by dinghy." He went on to start a chant: "We want our country back."

A little earlier, speaking to reporters, he expressed "regret" at his party for "letting some bad people" stand as candidates for the election - blaming the short turnaround after the election was called.

Farage also told the PA news agency that he thinks British politics "will break up in the next five years", predicting there'll be a "different electoral system and you won't even recognise it a few years down the road".

Image source, Reuters

Earlier, Nigel Farage briefly stepped inside a ring in Clacton - the constituency where he's running for Parliament - with boxing heavyweight Derek Chisora.

The Reform UK leader posted about the encounter on X, external, sharing an image of Chisora wearing a gown emblazoned with with words "Nigel's Security", with the caption: "Security upgrade complete."

Farage was later forced to defend his decision to appear alongside Chisora, who was convicted for assaulting a woman in 2010.

"You know what? You show me someone who's lived a perfect life and never been in trouble," Farage told the PA news agency. "He's got a huge following in the country and yeah, he is a good role model - imperfect as we all are."

While campaigning in Hampshire, Rishi Sunak has declined to say whether he thinks Suella Braverman's intervention was helpful.

The former home secretary wrote in the Daily Telegraph , externalyesterday that the election's "over" and the Conservatives "need to prepare for the reality and frustration of opposition".

Asked by journalists if he thinks she should've waited until after the election, the prime minister says there's "lots of people in this campaign, lots of commentary".

"I'm focused on just making sure as many people as possible know about the choice in front of them tomorrow," he adds, referring to polling day. Sunak also claims there are "millions and millions" of people who have "not yet made up their minds".

In case you've forgotten: Sunak sacked Braverman last November after she defied No 10 over an article in which she accused the Metropolitan Police of bias in the policing of protests. She was accused of stoking tension ahead of pro-Palestinian marches in London.

Image source, Reuters