We have the first result in Wales and it is a Conservative gain with a five and a half percent swing away from Labour.

We expected the Tory vote to be up by seven points and the Labour vote down by 12. In practice the swing is rather lower with a 2-point increase in the Tory vote and a 9-point decline in the Labour one. Here is another seat with a slightly lower swing than expected by the exit poll.

As Sky's political editor points out, it's part of the so-called "red wall" - the swathe of traditionally Labour seats which voted Leave in 2016 and which the Tories had their eyes on...

Image source, Getty Images

Former Labour Mayor of London Ken Livingstone tells the Press Association Jeremy Corbyn has paid the price for several aspects of his campaign, including not taking more action against anti-Semitism.

Mr Livingstone resigned from the Labour Party in 2018, having been suspended since 2016 in a row over allegations of anti-Semitism following comments he made about Hitler and Zionism.

He said: "The Jewish vote wasn't very helpful. Jeremy should have tackled that issue far earlier than he did.

"It looks like the end for Jeremy, which is disappointing for me since I'm a close ally. I'm sure he'll have to resign tomorrow."

Our political editor says the remarks will certainly raise eyebrows...

Heidi Allen left the Conservatives, partly in protest at Brexit, to join the Independent Group of MPs.

She later joined the Lib Dems but decided not to run again as an MP.

She says: "This is not good for our country - these extremes of politics.

"Regardless of the result we are in a very bad place for democracy. Millions of votes out there will be ignored.

"And we have a hard right government in control and an official opposition that has failed to do its job."

Labour holds the seat of Jarrow but their majority has dropped from just over 17,000 to 7,000.

Sir John Curtice says it is "the biggest drop in the Labour vote tonight so far".

"Support for the party is down 20 points, even more than the 18-point drop that we were expecting.

"Meanwhile, the three-point increase in the Conservative vote is just a couple of points down on the five we were expecting."

The SNP's Margaret Ferrier has kicked out Labour's Ged Killen in Rutherglen and Hamilton West - the SNP's first scalp of the night.

She won 23,775 votes compared with his 18,545 - a 5.1% swing.

That is slightly less than the exit poll predicted but it is still quite a win.

The BBC's Scotland editor, Sarah Smith, says the SNP will be "much cheered by this as they have been finding it difficult to believe the exit poll of 55 seats".

However, she says they are confident their vote share will go up.

"There are serious consequences if this is repeated across the country," she says.

"When the SNP said to Scottish voters a vote for them was for an independence referendum. the Scots turned out.

"It was a real risk for the nationalists to go into the election saying it was about independence as it can galvanise Unionists.

"But if the SNP win... it will look like a resolute mandate for that referendum."

Sarah Smith also says the results would show how Scotland and the rest of the UK were "moving in totally different directions".

Another Conservative gain as they take the County Durham seat from Labour.

Also another shadow minister to lose her seat. Jenny Chapman had been a spokesperson for Brexit for her party.

Sir John Curtice says the Tories have picked Darlington up, although with 7% - the swing was a little lower than we were expecting.

BBC Radio 4

Image source, News and Star

Sue Hayman, shadow environment secretary who has lost Labour's seat in Workington, is the first big name to go, according to Queen Mary University's Prof Phil Cowley.

"It's a seat that - aside from a very brief exception from a by-election - has been held by Labour since 1918," he adds.

Labour candidates and former Labour figures have been criticising the party leadership throughout the night.

Iain McNicol, who was general secretary from 2011 to 2018, has this to say:

During this campaign the Conservatives tried to target "Workington man".

In a nutshell, Workington man is described as "the imagined poster boy for "middle England" likes rugby league and Labour, he voted for Brexit and feels the country is moving away from his views."

But click here for a more detailed description.

The increase in the Tory vote in Workington was eight points and the decline in the Labour vote was 12 points. So the swing from Lab to Con in this seat is in line with the exit poll expectations.

NBC's correspondent is shocked...

In Wansbeck - a seat held by Labour chairman Ian Lavery - there has been an 11.6% swing from Labour to the Conservatives.

He's held on, but Mr Lavery's majority has dropped from 10,435 to 814.

The FT's chief political correspondent calls it "carnage"...

Image source, Getty Images

With just a handful of 650 seats declared so far, there's a long night ahead for vote counters across the nation.

A reminder - counting began moments after polls closed at 2200 GMT on Thursday.

Image source, PA Media

Image source, PA Media

Conservative Justice Secretary Robert Buckland says he is "not counting my chickens" but praises the swing in a fellow Swindon seat.

"It looks like an encouraging start," he says.

If the Tories win, he says it will not just be about "getting Brexit done", but they will move onto schools funding, NHS, law and order.

"We will get on with this agenda in the months ahead," he says. "There is plenty for a Conservative to do."

Asked how his party, which has followed a programme of austerity, would help those "left behind", Mr Buckland said: "What we are offering is a costed and realistic programme.

"It is not pie in the sky promises [as] made by the Labour opposition - people didn't fall for that.

"We are on the cusp of something historic."

A reminder for you, as the results keep on coming, that if you need to step back and take stock:

• Check out our at-a-glance summary of the key points of the night
• Read our political editor's analysis of the exit poll
• Look up the predicted result in your area
• See what it might all mean for Brexit

Professor Sir John Curtice
Polling expert

We were expecting a 15-point drop in the Labour vote here and in the event it's a 16-point drop.

However, we thought the Conservatives would be up by six points whereas in practice they were down by six points.

It looks as though the 17-point vote for the Brexit Party, rather bigger than we were expecting, may have cost the Tories some votes.

Speaking of wondering what a Conservative majority will mean, the political editor of the Spectator muses...

Nick Eardley
Political correspondent

It’s worth taking a moment to remember what this result will mean.

A Tory majority will mean Brexit happens - and that the UK will almost certainly leave the EU next month.

Boris Johnson will have a lot more power to get a future trade deal through Parliament too. He won’t have to rely on the European Research Group (ERG) Brexiteer group as much - if he so chooses.

It’s less clear what will happen with the Labour Party.

This looks like it could be a thumping loss for Jeremy Corbyn and his allies. Some are making clear already that they want a change of direction - others will fight that tooth and nail.

Polls closed three hours ago, so where are we now? Well...

• The Conservatives are set to win an overall majority of 86 in the general election, according to an exit poll for the BBC, ITV and Sky News.
• Senior Tory figures are being cautious right now - and they're right, it is only a prediction - but they say that if the result is born out, they'll be cracking on with Brexit asap.
• The exit poll appears to bring very bad news for Labour, with the worst result forecast for them for many decades
• Labour's John McDonnell blamed Brexit for squeezing out all the other issues, but a number of the party's candidates have put the fault squarely at the leadership's door. The pressure on his and Jeremy Corbyn's position can surely only grow...
• The first big moment of the night came when the Tories took Blyth Valley in North East England - a former mining community and Labour seat since 1950. The BBC's political editor Laura Kuenssberg says it's a huge moment, potentially symbolic of the night as a whole.
• Even in seats that Labour is holding, the party's share of the vote is down, upwards of 10%.
• The exit poll predicts a very good night for the SNP - winning more than 50 seats - but there's less certainty about that forecast
• The Lib Dems are forecast to get 13 seats and the Brexit Party none. The exit poll suggests Lib Dem leader Jo Swinson could be set to lose her seat, but we'll have to wait and see
• The Green Party will still have one MP and Plaid Cymru will lose one seat for a total of three, the survey suggests
• Read Laura Kuenssberg's analysis and our at-a-glance piece, summing things up so far

Joey D'Urso
BBC Trending

Image source, Reuters

The big online story during the 2017 general election was the influence of a host of pro-Labour websites.

But since 2017, changes to Facebook's algorithm - the code determining which posts get seen - have made it much harder for these sites to reach massive numbers of people.

That's not the only development. While the ecosystem of left-wing Facebook pages and groups is still a big deal, two rival spheres of influence have grown in size.

One is vehemently opposed to Brexit. The other is passionately in favour: since 2017 there appears to be an upswing in pro-Brexit content on social media, especially Facebook, which may have helped Boris Johnson.

A Labour press release on Wednesday evening said the party ran “the most successful election social media campaign the country has ever seen”.

But if this exit poll is anything like correct it shows that likes and shares do not necessarily translate to votes.

Research suggests that users of Twitter, and to a lesser extent Facebook, skew young, left, and pro-EU, while older voters - who are more likely to vote Conservative - are less likely to be active on social media.

If Boris Johnson has indeed won a big majority, it shows we must always be aware that social media users are not representative of the UK.