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Labour’s “red wall” across the Midlands and the north of England – the bedrock of the party’s support for generations – has crumbled as the Conservatives claim key marginal seats.
Leave-voting former mining towns like Workington, which was seen as representative of the voters parties needed to win over, backed the Tories.
Tony Blair’s former constituency of Sedgefield went blue.
As did West Bromwich East, vacated by former Labour deputy leader Tom Watson.
The Conservatives carved a path from Greater Manchester to Lincolnshire, Birmingham to Northumberland, as once Labour strongholds fell.
Redcar, a seat in the north-east of England that had never before voted in a Conservative, picked Jacob Young over Labour’s Anna Turley by 3,527 votes.
Some of these seats have not had a Tory MP in decades – and in the case of Burnley it had been more than a century.
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The Conservatives took Bassetlaw, long seen as a Labour heartland, by a majority of more than 14,000.
And Bolsover in Derbyshire, Labour since it was created in 1950 and Dennis Skinner’s seat since 1970, awarded Boris Johnson his Commons majority at just after 05:00 GMT.
The Conservatives seized from Labour three seats in each of Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire, South Yorkshire and Lancashire, four in West Yorkshire and the West Midlands and five in the Greater Manchester area.
They also now control all of Lincolnshire’s seven seats after taking Lincoln, Scunthorpe and Great Grimsby.
North East and Cumbria Labour seats lost to the Conservatives include:
- Barrow and Furness
- Bishop Auckland
- Blyth Valley
- Darlington
- Durham North West
- Redcar
- Stockton South
It began at about 23:30 with Blyth Valley, a Labour seat since 1950.
The BBC’s political editor Laura Kuenssberg described Ian Levy’s win as “remarkable” and a “symbolic moment”.
The Tories continued their sweep across the north of England, taking Workington from Labour, which had held the seat, with only one brief interruption, since 1918.
Conservative Mark Jenkinson won the Workington seat and hailed Boris Johnson’s “message of hope”
Mark Jenkinson, who beat shadow environment secretary Sue Hayman by 4,176 votes, said Boris Johnson’s “message of hope resonated with people across the length and breadth of our nation”.
The Conservatives also gained Leigh in Greater Manchester – a seat held by Labour for almost 100 years and previously represented by Andy Burnham, who stood down when he became the region’s mayor.
Shadow justice secretary Lord Falconer said Labour had lost “our most heartland support” with long-term supporters no longer feeling connected to the party.
“The big question is what do we do to start having a conversation again, both with the people in the marginals, the floating voters that could be one or the other, but also our heartland,” he said.
“If we don’t do it quickly, it will be too late to put it together again.”
‘Nastiness and hostility’
Some blamed Brexit, others Jeremy Corbyn.
Phil Wilson, who stood for Labour in Mr Blair’s old constituency of Sedgefield, said the Labour leader went down “like a lead balloon” with voters on the doorstep.
“For Labour leadership to blame Brexit for the result is mendacious nonsense. Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership was a bigger problem. To say otherwise is delusional,” he tweeted.
One of Mr Corbyn’s closest allies – the former Mayor of London, Ken Livingstone – said it “looked like the end” for the Labour leader, and he would probably “have to resign”.
But Labour chairman Ian Lavery, who retained his Wansbeck seat by 814 votes, said the party had suffered a lot of “hostility”, “resentment” and “nastiness” because of its position on Brexit.
“People feel let down, that’s the reality of it,” he told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, citing Labour’s support for a second EU referendum having previously said it would accept the result of the first.
“We lost trust and we cannot as a party continue to promise one thing and do another,” he added.
Caroline Flint said she was fighting on “two fronts”
Losing her Don Valley seat, Caroline Flint blamed Mr Corbyn’s leadership and Remain-backing MPs for the party’s performance.
The former Labour minister’s former seat has existed since 1918 and had never before had a Conservative MP.
She said she had been “fighting on” two fronts, the first being voters not wanting to support Mr Corbyn as Prime Minister and the second of Labour “being more like a ‘stop Brexit’ Remain party.”
As the Conservatives took Stoke-on-Trent Central, defeated Labour candidate Gareth Snell described the loss of seats such as his as “the start of 20 years of Tory rule”.
Even in the seats that Labour retained, the party’s majority and vote share were severely dented.
In Halton in Cheshire, Derek Twigg won a majority of 18,975, down from 25,405 at the last election, with the Brexit Party winning more than 8% of the vote.
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Tom Watson stood down as West Bromwich East MP ahead of the election
The red wall did not crumble on Merseyside or in London, however.
Labour saw Liverpool’s first black MP, Kim Johnson, elected in Riverside, while the party also held Wirral West, despite forecasts that it would be a close-run contest.
In London, Labour secured a victory over the Tories in Putney, the seat vacated by former education secretary Justine Greening, with Fleur Anderson defeating Conservative candidate Will Sweet.
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