Paul Ward
BBC Scotland

A story brewing in Edinburgh seems to be in the capital’s South West constituency.

High profile SNP figure Joanna Cherry won almost half of the votes at the last general election but Scottish Labour are increasingly confident of taking the seat.

A win there by the candidate Scott Arthur would illustrate the size of the party’s revival - they came third in the constituency in 2019.

Cherry has been prominent in the SNP Westminster group since 2015 and was involved in a number of high court cases about Brexit. She also clashed regularly with the SNP leadership over gender reform.

Tommy Sheppard and Deidre Brock are also defending SNP seats in the capital and the party said those contests are “too close to call”.

In Edinburgh West, the Lib Dem supporters are giving the thumbs up as ballots are looked at.

That seat had the highest proportion of postal votes applied for in any Scottish constituency so the picture may be becoming clearer earlier than others.

Labour's Ian Murray has held the other Edinburgh constituency since 2010 and his winning margin is only expected to grow.

Graham Stewart
In East Renfrewshire

Labour are increasingly optimistic of taking this seat.

Jim Murphy, who was the MP until 2015, has tweeted: “Whisper it, but Labour may be about to come from third to first.”

And local activists here tell me they’re “confident”.

The incumbent, the SNP's Kirsten Oswald, says she’s keeping her counsel for the moment.

Ben Philip
BBC Scotland News in Glenrothes

The four Fife constituencies have been a key battleground during this election between the SNP and Labour. The Liberal Democrat’s also have a stake here too.

There was some initial excitement about the exit poll earlier.

I’ve just spoken to a Labour source who says the party feels “cautiously optimistic” in all four Fife constituencies at this stage of proceedings. They say it “could be tight” but there’s a sense of positivity at this stage.

All the seats here in Fife are notionally SNP, so that would be quite a story if Labour did gain here. Other parties have been keeping cards close to their chest.

The slick and well-rehearsed election operation is very much in motion.

All ballot boxes have now arrived and the empties are being taken out of the hall.

Everything feels rather calm at the moment, but there’s plenty time for drama and emotion when the declarations begin - the first could be within the next hour.

The BBC's Scotland editor James Cook explains some of the reasons why Scottish voters might be turning to Labour at this election.

The exit poll predicts the SNP could see its number of MPs at Westminster fall to 10, down from 48 at the last general election.

Cook says it boils down to wanting a change from the Tories - and being dissatisfied with the SNP's performance:

Conservatives aren't facing a wipeoutpublished at 01:25 British Summer Time 5 July

01:25 BST 5 July

David Wallace Lockhart
Political correspondent

Conservative sources are sounding optimistic that Andrew Bowie will hold on in Aberdeenshire West and Kincardine.

They also think John Lamont looks safe in the south of Scotland.

It looks like they aren’t facing a Scottish wipeout, which will mean a sigh of relief in the party.

But what’s much less certain is if outgoing party leader Douglas Ross will win his seat tonight.

Angus Cochrane
BBC Scotland News

Image source, PA Media

For years, Ian Murray cut a lonely figure as Labour’s sole Scottish representative at Westminster.

The cohort was doubled to two in October, when Michael Shanks won the Rutherglen and Hamilton West by-election, but Labour have considerably higher ambitions for the new parliament.

Labour’s once seemingly unassailable dominance in Scotland was shattered in 2015, when the SNP, buoyed by a post-independence referendum boost, won 56 of the country’s 59 seats.

Murray, in Edinburgh South, was Labour’s only survivor.

In 2017, Theresa May’s decision to call for a snap poll resulted in a minor recovery – or another thrashing depending on your perspective – for Labour in Scotland, returning seven seats.

The snap winter poll in 2019 sent Labour back to square one in Scotland, with Murray once again left as the party’s sole representative.

Anas Sarwar and Sir Keir Starmer will be hoping for a significantly larger cohort in the new parliament.

Early results to watch out forpublished at 01:19 British Summer Time 5 July

01:19 BST 5 July

Philip Sim
BBC Scotland political correspondent

There are a few things we can watch for in the early results which could help to tease out the story of the night overall.

The first and most obvious is the swing between the SNP and Labour in the central belt. That will determine the fate of the biggest narrative - whether Labour’s quest to retake seats in places like Glasgow and Fife can bear fruit.

Related to that is the fate of the Conservative vote, both in terms of whether there’s a swing to Labour impacting on those central belt seats, and in terms of how it compares to the SNP vote in key contests in the north east and south of Scotland.

Smaller parties could have a significant impact too. It may be apparent from early results if the Greens have had an uptick in support - and whether that has come from pro-independence voters at the expense of the SNP.

Elsewhere, turnout for Reform UK is worth watching - particularly in places like Aberdeenshire North and Moray East, which recorded a big Leave vote in 2016, and where Douglas Ross is hoping to be returned as an MP.

Georgia Roberts
BBC Scotland political correspondent in Motherwell

The former Scottish Labour leader Richard Leonard has rocked up to the North Lanarkshire count in a very good mood.

He tells me the mood in Scottish Labour is the best he’s ever felt it.

A good result for Labour here will be taking two of the four seats up for grabs from the SNP - a great result will be all four, he says.

On the SNP’s fortunes this evening, he says that it’s clear to him their vote has stayed at home this time round.

The SNP have been knocked off their pedestal in the eyes of voters, he tells me, referring to their recent woes over the past 12 months.

On the BBC Scotland election programme, Kirsty Wark puts Nicola Sturgeon's criticism of the SNP not putting independence front and centre in the campaign to Shirley-Anne Somerville.

The social justice secretary says: "This has clearly been a difficult night for the SNP."

Somerville says people wanted a change of government and wanted the Tories out.

She says they'll have to listen to that but also what they've been saying about the SNP.

Andrew Kerr
BBC Scotland political correspondent in Aberdeen

It’s a fast-changing picture here at the Aberdeen count.

At the start of the night the exit poll was treated with a bit of suspicion.

Now Labour supporters at the count are saying the SNP vote has “collapsed”.

This could be bad news for the SNP Westminster leader Stephen Flynn in Aberdeen South.

It’s said to be a three-way split with the Tories and Labour doing as well as the SNP.

It’s also said to be tight in Aberdeen North - with Labour possibly hot on the heels of the SNP’s Kirsty Blackman.

The Tory vote has said to have come out in the shire - safeguarding leader Douglas Ross and energy minister Andrew Bowie.

Katy Scott
BBC Scotland news in Glasgow

Deputy leader of the Scottish Conservatives Meghan Gallacher says she is approaching the exit poll “with caution” - even though it suggests gains for the party in Scotland.

“We’ve said that a vote for any other party in those targets seats would be a wasted vote because it’s so close between us and the SNP,” she says. “We just don’t know what’s going to happen.”

She says her party had to react to the SNP’s “independence obsession” in their manifesto, and that voters were more concerned about other issues like fixing the NHS and transport.

“We’ve got the Holyrood election which will happen in two years' time, so after tonight it’ll be about regrouping our efforts and focusing on the next election that’s ahead of us,” she adds.

She says she’s already had two Lucozades to prepare for the all-nighter, adding: “I think the last declaration is about 05:30 so we’ve got a really long night ahead of us.”

The 'scunner' factorpublished at 00:58 British Summer Time 5 July

00:58 BST 5 July

Kirsten Campbell
BBC Scotland political correspondent

Talking to politicians who've been canvasing support on the doorsteps, many are sensing what I call "the scunner factor".

Folk are a bit fed up with both Holyrood and Westminster politicians.

Anecdotally, they're lacking confidence in elected representatives they feel have let them down, over Partygate or Covid whatsapp messages, over the cost of living and NHS waiting times.

Turnout could be a key factor in this election. In tight contests the seat will be won by the party who motivated its supporters to go to the polls, rather than sit this one out.

The percentage of the electorate that voted at the last Westminster election was 68.1%, slightly up on the poll two years earlier.

At Holyrood in 2021 it was 63.5%, the highest ever for a Scottish Parliament election. While in the council elections in 2022 it was 44%.

Compare that to the independence referendum; a high stakes poll, with huge voter engagement reaching a turnout of 84.6%.

In contrast, the last electoral contest, the by-election in Rutherglen and Hamilton West saw a turnout of just 37%.

So have people bothered to vote in this general election, or did the sofa win?

David Wallace Lockhart
BBC Scotland political correspondent

The Scottish Tories are sounding confident about John Lamont hanging on to his Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk seat.

There will be a sigh of relief from the party to know that they’re not facing a wipeout in Scotland. They’re stressing that many of the seats they are defending are on a knife-edge.

Graham Stewart
In East Renfrewshire

Turnout here of 67.49%.

That's about 10 percentage points down on the last election when it was 76.6%.

Now that the votes have been verified, the counting proper begins.

Image source, Getty Images

Former first minister Nicola Sturgeon says Scottish independence "wasn't really put front and centre" of the SNP's general election campaign.

Speaking to ITV, the former SNP leader says it would be "foolish" for the new government to ignore existing support for independence in Scotland.

Sturgeon says: "A lot of the people - if not the majority of people - who in this election have shifted from the SNP to Labour, they still believe in independence, they haven't shifted their opinion on independence.

"So it might take the issue off the immediate agenda for Keir Starmer, but it would be - I think - foolish to suggest that the independence question has gone away."

Lots of contests are three-way strugglespublished at 00:49 British Summer Time 5 July

00:49 BST 5 July

Philip Sim
BBC Scotland political correspondent

One feature of this election, it appears, could be the return of the three-way marginal.

There essentially weren’t any in 2019, with the whole of Scotland becoming a series of two-horse races between the SNP and the most likely local challenger – be it Tory, Labour or Lib Dem.

But with the constitution playing less of a part in this campaign, things might be becoming more evenly spread again.

BBC Scotland's Andrew Kerr is reporting evenly-stacked piles of ballot papers in Aberdeen South, with the SNP, Labour and Tories all in contention. The exit poll puts all three parties within three percentage points of each other.

Looking at the exit poll, there’s a similar prediction for Stirling and Strathallan - all three parties within four points.

And that picture is replicated in Argyll and Bute. It suggests results could indeed be on a knife-edge - making them hard to predict.

The Scottish Conservative chairman says the Aberdeenshire North and Moray East seat, which party leader Douglas Ross is standing in will be close.

Speaking at the Glasgow count, Craig Hoy said: "I think that seat will be very, very close. I think that all of our seats are going to be very close in Scotland."

Could SNP's campaign have worked in Labour's favour?published at 00:38 British Summer Time 5 July

00:38 BST 5 July

David Wallace Lockhart
BBC Scotland political correspondent

More and more SNP insiders seem to be thinking the exit poll could broadly be right, meaning a very bad result for the party.

This could be an element of managing expectations, but things do seem pretty grim for them.

They ran a campaign saying Labour were going to win UK-wide, and therefore you could safely back the SNP in Scotland and not risk a Conservative government.

But people at the top of Scottish Labour were delighted with this - they were working on the assumption that people like to back a winner, and that the SNP message actually worked in Labour’s favour.

Georgia Roberts
BBC Scotland political correspondent in Motherwell

In North Lanarkshire, the heart of the central belt where the major SNP v Labour duals are taking place, Labour have been quietly confident of a successful night.

All four seats up for grabs in this area are former Labour strongholds, swept away by the SNP in that 2015 landslide. Aside from Coatbridge which briefly returned to Labour in 2017, they’ve stayed SNP ever since.

Scottish Health Secretary Neil Gray, who’s here tonight keeping an eye on his former Westminster seat, says “We just don’t know” - adding hopefully that the returns have been good in recent days.

And one senior Conservative told me with some surprise that there are signs that the Reform vote in Motherwell seems stronger than expected.

But it's all pointing to a disappointing night for the SNP here.

Andrew Kerr
BBC Scotland political correspondent in Aberdeen

The Aberdeen count is alive with gossip and intrigue about what might happen.

The truth is that nobody knows at this point.

For the SNP Westminster leader Stephen Flynn, the piles of votes in Aberdeen South could be a cause for concern.

Some say they are split fairly evenly between the SNP, the Conservatives and Labour.

The future of oil and gas has been quite significant in this election.

There’s said to be concern among Aberdeen householders about SNP policies and the possibility of negative equity hitting city homes if the industry doesn’t have a secure future.