Britons have voted to choose their next government, with polls in the UK now closed.
Exit polling by Ipsos, which surveyed tens of thousands of voters, is forecasting a landslide win for Labour.
Follow all the latest developments live.
Key events
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Former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn has won his seat as an independent
This is a significant result in London: former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, who was booted out of the party under Sir Keir Starmer, has been re-elected in his constituency as an independent.
Mr Corbyn led the party to two successive defeats in 2017 and 2019.
He was ejected from Labour in the wake of a report into allegations of anti-Semitism in the party.
Since then, he's been critical of the party's direction and a shift to the political centre.
Mr Corbyn has been the MP in Islington North for more than 40 years.
Nigel Farage has been elected to the UK parliament
Nigel Farage has been elected to the House of Commons.
The prominent Brexiteer took over the leadership of the right-wing Reform UK party during the general election campaign, after initially saying he wouldn’t run.
This is Mr Farage's eighth attempt at winning a House of Commons seat.
His seat of Clacton is the second win for Reform so far in this election, but the party has also come second in many seats, with voters swinging toward it from the Conservatives.
Exit polling forecast Reform could end up with 13 seats in the next parliament.
There are about 500 seats still to declare a result.
Ed Davey speaks after winning seat
Liberal Democrats leader Ed Davey, whose election stunts became a feature of this election campaign, has won his seat of Kingston and Surbiton.
During the campaign he danced in a Zumba class, drove a hot pink Cadillac, rode a paddleboard to highlight the issue of sewage dumping, went bungee jumping, and played giant dominos representing other parties.
"I don't know if you can tell but I have rather enjoyed this campaign," he said with a smile.
"But what I have loved most hasn't been paddleboarding or bungee jumping, it's been speaking to people … about the challenges they face and their hopes for the future.
"We want to be your champions. We have listened to you and we have heard you loud and clear."
Mr Davey has been a carer for most of his life — first for his mother who died of cancer when he was a teenager, then for his "Nanna" in her final years, and now he and his wife Emily care for their son John, who lives with a severe disability.
During the campaign he has made a point of highlighting the work carers do and pledging more support for unpaid carers, as well as more options for home care.
"I am grateful we have been able to bring caring out of the shadows in this campaign and we will continue to stand up for a society where we value care and properly support carers," he said.
Reform UK's Nigel Farage has been described as a 'Vegemite figure'
Reform UK's Nigel Farage has been described as a "Vegemite figure".
But what does that mean?
"Some people hate him, but a lot of people do like him," Tom Howe from Monash University told ABC News Channel.
His analysis of Reform UK's result in this election suggests this is just the beginning for the party.
"They've been able to attack Sunak from the right, and really Sunak has fed into the Reform campaign — the D-Day disaster essentially really aided Nigel Farage's campaign, but I think it's important to recognise how important Nigel Farage is to Reform," Mr Howe said.
"Before he joined the party, they weren't polling anywhere near as well, so his impact has been massive.
"Labour might have won back the red wall today, but they face some significant problems going forward, particularly as Reform embed [and] develop their platform."
Keir Starmer speaks after winning his seat
We’re hearing from Sir Keir Starmer — the man set to be the next prime minister of the United Kingdom.
He was declared the winner of his seat of Holborn and St Pancras.
Speaking for the first time on election night, Sir Keir thanked his family and staff.
Loading..."I promise this: whether you voted for me or not, I will serve every person in this constituency," he said.
"The mothers I sat with who lost children to knife crime, the pensioners who can’t get the doctors appointments they desperately need, the local businesses who have struggled so hard to keep their head above water.
"I will speak out for you, have your back, fight your corner every single day.
"Tonight the people here and around the country have spoken and they’re ready for change. To end the politics of performance and return to politics as public service.
"The change begins right here because this is your democracy, your community and your future.
"You have voted, it is now time for us to deliver."
'The British people have voted for change'
The woman tipped to be the UK's first female Chancellor of the Exchequer, Rachel Reeves, has just won her seat with a majority of more than 12,000 votes.
"It is a huge honour and a privilege to be returned as the Labour Member of Parliament for Leeds West and Pudsey," Ms Reeves, 45, said after she was announced the winner.
"I do not want to pre-empt the results that are still to come, but if what we have seen so far holds out, then it is clear that the British people have voted for change."
Ms Reeves is a former Bank of England economist and has also worked in the private banking sector.
She became an MP 14 years ago and has been the Shadow Chancellor since 2021.
"I know that the road ahead will not be easy. There are no quick fixes, and the hard choices lie ahead," she said.
"There is much to do. We have campaigned as we mean to go on as a government of unity, not of division, a government of wealth creation and a government in the national interest.
"Country first, party second – that is our promise to Britain."
She ended her victory speech by saying she "can't wait to get started".
Some more questions answered
Righto, I'm going to have a crack at some of these.
Adam has asked:
Would the new Labour government still maintain the status quo with regards to the AUKUS pact given that foreign policy views are similar to those of the outgoing administration?
Yes, a potential incoming Labour government in the UK would maintain the status quo with regard to AUKUS.
Catherine has asked:
Why is election day held on a weekday over there?
This is a good one. The TL;DR answer is: tradition. It's been held on a Thursday since the 1930s. It all comes down to history. Once upon a time, people were paid their wages on Fridays and went to the pub. There was a concern that if they voted on Friday too, they'd be influenced by Conservative liquor interests. Same with Sundays and church. Saturdays previously hosted a couple of different types of council elections.
Vic has asked:
How's George Galloway doing in the results?
This was an interesting seat, Rochdale, where a by-election was held a few months back. George Galloway, a former Labour MP, who founded his own party, the Workers Party of Britain in 2019. He's quite a controversial figure, but there's probably too much history there to include in a blog post coming up to 3am in the morning London time. Anyway, he's just lost the seat, Labour have won it back.
Kate has asked:
I'm interested in the votes in Scotland, has the SNP vote crumbled? And aren't the SNP just Labour except with a kilt on?
While it's true that the SNP is also centre-left like Labour, they do have differences. The SNP, for instance, is preoccupied with Scottish independence, and is keen on another referendum.
'People do care, but they don't vote'
Unlike Australia, voting isn't mandatory in the UK, and, according to Britain's national broadcaster, the BBC, early results indicate voter turnout for this election could be as low as 54 per cent.
As more results come in over the coming hours, we will get a clearer picture of just how many people cast a ballot.
London-based actress and "part-time suffragette" Kate Willoughby made it her mission to get as many people to vote as possible.
Dressed in suffragette costume and carrying a sign instructing people to "vote", she travelled through London reminding people to have their say.
"It's amazing how many people do care, but they don't vote," Ms Willoughby said.
She believes people may have been deterred from voting because they don't feel inspired by any of the options on their ballot slip.
She gave disengaged voters this advice: "Look, you may not like any of them, but turn up, put a cross through your ballot and say 'not good enough', otherwise they're going to think you just don't care."
The man tipped to be Britain's new prime minister, Labour's Keir Starmer, has pledged to lower the voting age from 18 to 16 during his first term in office, which would expand the voter pool at future elections.
It's a change Ms Willoughby would welcome.
"A lot of the arguments against lowering the voter age to 16 are like the arguments against women having the vote over 100 years ago," she said.
"I personally think expanding voting to 16-year-olds is great, as long as long as there is good education and civic engagement."
Reform UK has just won its first seat at an election
Just after 2:15am, local time, Reform UK has won its first seat, in Ashfield.
Lee Anderson will be the representative for the constituency near the city of Nottingham in England.
He was elected in 2019 as a Conservative but defected to Reform UK in March.
We've seen a lot of seats where Reform picked up a significant chunk of the vote from the Conservatives, but this is the first one tonight where it managed to break through to first place.
There are still another 616 seats to be declared.
Count Binface spotted at the vote count
Satirical political character Count Binface, who is running against Rishi Sunak, has also been spotted at the count.
Count Binface is standing for the Richmond and Northallerton seat in northern England.
Binface is now a familiar face — or helmet — at British elections, having stood against two ex-prime ministers, Theresa May in 2017 — albeit then in his former guise as Lord Buckethead — and Boris Johnson in 2019.
He also contested the London mayor elections in 2021 and in May this year when he won 24,000 votes.
Lib Dems leader Ed Davey arrives at the count
Liberal Democrats leader Ed Davey has arrived at the King's Centre in Chessington, south west London, during the count.
He is running for the Kingston and Surbiton constituency.
The first Labour gain of the night left the incumbent fuming
Speaking to the BBC, outgoing Conservative MP Sir Robert Buckland took aim at his own party.
"I'm fed up with performance art politics. I've watched colleagues in the Conservative Party strike poses, write inflammatory op eds, and say stupid things they have no evidence for instead of concentrating on doing the job they were elected to do. I've had enough of it.
"I want the Conservative Party to get back to the ethos of doing stuff well and being competent and not pretending to please the media.
"If we can get back to that, then I think we have more than a fighting chance at the next election, but we need to do it quickly and we need to wake up now."
As he accepted defeat in his seat of Swindon, he told media some members of his party had behaved with "astonishing ill-discipline" and had been "spectacularly unprofessional".
"I expect more from colleagues. And I also expect colleagues in senior office to get a grip of their brief and their portfolio and understand politics is about hard choices and doing the detail," Sir Robert said.
"It's not about left and right. It's about those who want to come into politics to do things, rather than to be somebody.
"I'm fed up of personal agendas and jockeying for position, the truth is now — with the Conservatives facing this electoral Armageddon — it's going to be like a group of bald men arguing over a comb.
"I came into politics to actually do government and to responsibly exercise power in order to make change in this country.
"I wanted the chance to do more for the people I care about. I've been denied that because the party around me can't get its proverbial together."
When does counting stop for the night?
When do they stop counting for the night?
- LT - dolphin trainer
It doesn't! Workers at each of the counting centres will count until the job is done.
Postal votes all had to arrive by the time polls closed, so the returning officer in each constituency has all the votes and they won't stop until they're all counted.
Declarations of the final result in every seat will take place all night and into the morning, UK time.
ABC Global Affairs editor John Lyons on the election
John Lyons says surprises in the election include the predicted underperformance of the Scottish National Party (SNP).
The SNP is expected to lose seats to Labour, with the exit poll estimating it will fall to just 10 seats.
The party currently holds 43 seats.
Another surprise was how Reform UK is performing so far, he said, with the party coming second in some of the declared areas.
Loading...'Incompetent', 'untrustworthy' — and likely to become PM
Sir Keir Starmer looks likely to become the UK's next prime minister, although, if the results of a poll from three weeks ago are anything to go by, you could have been forgiven for thinking he was on track to lose.
If you're interested to learn a bit more about the man the exit poll says will have one of the most commanding advantages ever seen in the House of Commons, I wrote about him:
UK election nights have more ribbons than the royal show
They say democracy isn't a beauty contest, but there's a UK election tradition that makes it feel a bit like one.
Candidates themselves turn up to the counting centres, often wearing big medallions adorned with ribbons, called "rosettes".
It's their chance to wear a little bling, I guess.
The candidates dutifully file on stage behind the returning officer when the result is announced.
And the winner is then invited to make a speech to the adoring crowd gathered in a council leisure centre at four in the morning.
All candidates will do this, even the prime minister and opposition leader.
And, perhaps knowing they might get their mug on the telly, some candidates choose to dress to the nines.
Expect to see the Official Monster Raving Loony Party on stage later in the night, with their candidates dressed in some … creative … garb.
And Prime Minister Rishi Sunak is being challenged by a candidate named Count Binface, who, as his name suggests, has a bin on his face.
It's democracy, British style.
How the world's media is covering the election
So, one of the biggest differences about the way the UK votes as compared to Australia is the timing. They don't start counting any votes until 10pm! That makes for a late night. We aren't expecting to hear from any of the leaders until around 3am.
Here's some pics from near the Houses of Parliament in London which show how the world's media is covering the election.
They were taken by the ABC's Shaun Kingma.
'Did I think we’d be here? No. Keir did though,' says London's Labour mayor
Talking to the BBC, London Mayor Sadiq Khan said he feared Labour was "on the brink of extinction" after its 2019 loss.
"In four and a half years, Keir Starmer has taken us to the cusp of power," he said.
Khan said he had known Starmer for decades.
"When he first told me four and a half years ago that he wanted to be leader, I wasn't clear if he could go on to be the PM," he admitted.
"But in his sense of conviction and confidence that made him think he could to it, he made us think we could do it. He's built a team around him.
"There have been some wobbly moments, there have been times where we've thought it wasn't possible. In my wildest dreams, four and a half years ago, did I think we'd be here? No. Keir did though."
Your questions answered
Thanks for sending your questions in. I'm Michelle Rimmer, and I'm a journalist in the ABC's London bureau. Keep them coming in!
Very Curious has asked:
Would you please explain the Reform UK and Lib Dem parties in the UK. Which Australian parties are they most aligned to philosophically?
Great question. Let me break it down for you:
- Reform UK are most similar to One Nation in Australia, although they're much less established (going into this election, they didn't have any MPs). They have right-wing, populist values. They want to cut immigration to the UK, and campaigned on lowering taxes. They are less concerned about the UK's net zero targets. They also have a very prominent leader in Nigel Farage, in the same way One Nation leader Pauline Hanson is an identifiable name in Australian politics.
- The Liberal Democrats are a centrist party, although depending on which faction controls it, it can be centre-left. They want to reform voting in the UK (so that it's the same as Australia), but take more progressive stances on social issues like LGBT rights and drug decriminalisation. But there is no direct equivalent to them in Australia because they have so many MPs (they're expected to have 63 in the next parliament based on that exit poll). In Australia, the Centre Alliance has one MP. Back in the day the Australian Democrats had a few more I guess.
Christoph has asked:
Any idea if Rishi Sunak will maintain his own seat?
Thanks for your question, Christoph. It's too early to tell at this stage. Exit polls suggest Rishi Sunak is likely to retain his seat, but that's not guaranteed. We aren't likely to know the official result for his electorate of Richmond and Northallerton for a number of hours yet. Never before has a sitting prime minister in the UK lost their seat at a general election so it would be a historic defeat if Rishi Sunak isn't re-elected as an MP at the very least.
Mr Hudson has said:
Theresa May never contested an election as leader. Mr Cameron narrowly won in 2015 and delivered on his promise of a referendum on leaving the EU.
Hi Mr Hudson, thanks for your comment. It's wrong, however. Theresa May took over as prime minister in 2016 following a leadership ballot, but less than a year later she called a snap general election which saw her Conservative Party lose its majority. It made getting an EU withdrawal bill through parliament even more difficult and ultimately saw her step down as PM in 2019.
Natty has asked:
Where are the democracy sausages; or is that an Aussie thing?
Hi Natty, great question! There are a number of things that set Australian and British elections apart and, sadly for Aussies abroad, democracy sausages are a glaring omission at polling stations here in the UK. Instead Britain has "democracy pets". People bring their dogs, cats, snakes, you-name-it with them when they cast their vote. It's a cuter but far less delicious election day tradition.
Analysis: Don't expect big foreign policy shifts under UK's new Labour government
The election of Sir Keir Starmer ensures a rare moment of business-as-usual when it comes to big geopolitical issues, particularly the wars in Ukraine and Gaza and the rising influence of Iran.
These are times of growing instability and turbulence.
France appears to be swinging significantly to the far-right (and an election will be held there on Sunday), and Donald Trump remains a serious chance of winning the November presidential election in the US.
Both those results raise the possibility of major change in the international scene — the surging National Rally party in France and Trump would not share the commitment to financially supporting Ukraine that both French President Emmanuel Macron and US President Joe Biden have shown (although under France's electoral system, Macron will keep his position as president until 2027 and retain power over foreign policy issues, regardless of the result on Sunday).
In the UK however, Sir Keir's views will be similar to those of the outgoing Rishi Sunak: the UK will continue to be one of the major financiers for Ukraine, the UK will continue to support sanctions against Iran, and on Israel the UK will express concerns about the number of civilians Israel is killing in Gaza but will support Israel's stated aim of destroying Hamas.