Hi there, I’m Rob Harris, the Europe correspondent for the Herald and the Age.
It’s almost 9am here in London where things are moving quickly.
Within a few hours Rishi Sunak will say goodbye from Downing Street (let’s hope he has an umbrella). Sir Kier Starmer will be invited to form a government by the king.
A white removal van has arrived outside 10 Downing Street as Sunak prepares to step down as prime minister.
Rishi Sunak departs the Conservative Party’s headquarters in London. Credit: Bloomberg
It is a historic morning in Britain, with Labour winning from opposition for just the fourth time in its long history.
Starmer becomes only the seventh Labour prime minister in the party’s history.
But he comes to power knowing Labour’s public support is shallow, with 34 per cent of the national vote, the lowest-ever winning share and only 10 points higher than the Conservatives.
The Tories have suffered a devastating defeat and have sunk to their worst-ever result. The Tory vote – 24 per cent – was decimated by Nigel Farage’s populist Reform UK which snared 14 per cent, but just 4 seats.
They will win fewer than 125 seats, lower than the party’s worst performance of 156 in 1906.
It is a generational wipeout for them which included the ousting of former prime minister Liz Truss. They have also lost seats formerly held by Tory prime ministers including Theresa May, Boris Johnson, David Cameron and, of course, Truss.
There are lessons for Australian Labor to takeaway too, there are now five pro-Gaza independent MPs - more than the number of Reform MPs elected: Ayoub Khan, Shockat Adam, Adnan Hussain, Iqbal Hussain Mohamed and Jeremy Corbyn.
This is where we’ll leave our live coverage for today, but I’ll be providing updates throughout the day. You can keep up with the latest here.
Thanks for reading.