BRITAIN will wake up to a political earthquake.
Labour have stormed to victory with their biggest majority in their 100 year history, according to the exit poll.
It is a jaw-dropping turnaround from the dark days of the Jeremy Corbyn era of 2019, when the party suffered their worst result in history.
The Tories look set to be decimated. The most successful political party in Europe reduced to just a rump of 131 MPs.
Be in no doubt - this is a nightmare for the Conservative Party. They now face the painful task of having to rebuild and choose a new leader.
But the big story of the night is Nigel Farage’s Reform Party, who are expected to win a staggering 13 seats.
This is more than anyone predicted.
Out on the campaign trail, Nigel has said “there is something happening out there”. It looks like he was right.
Reform are picking up seats off the Tories.
These include Clacton where Nigel is predicted to win, and Hartlepool - the former Labour heartland which once called Peter Mandelson their MP but turned Tory under Boris Johnson.
Reform were expected to win seats off Labour too.
But they failed to take both Barnsley seats and knock out Dan Jarvis and Stephanie Peacock.
Reform are hoovering up votes in Brexit territory - those blue collar Leave backing towns which feel that Westminster have overlooked them for too long.
Nigel is the ultimate political maverick. He has lobbed a grenade into Westminster - and he is only just getting started.
Nigel, 60, the godfather of Brexit, is a charismatic leader well trained in waging war on ‘political elites’ from his days in the European Parliament.
He had run and failed to become an MP seven times before.
Finally, he has won on the eighth attempt - and looks set to have a dozen Reform MPs with him.
He has the potential to change the face of politics forever.
Sir Keir Starmer and the next leader of the Tories - whoever that may be - should brace themselves.
The upset comes after what was one of the most bizarre election campaigns in UK political history.
It began with Rishi Sunak getting drenched in the rain in Downing Street as he announced the snap poll — his words nearly drowned out by protesters blaring out Labour’s 1997 anthem Things Can Only Get Better.
And it ended with the surreal sight of Rishi appearing on the This Morning TV sofa alongside Britain’s bikini-clad most-tattooed woman.
In between we had Lib Dem leader Ed Davey’s absurd stunts, and Nigel Farage being milk-shaked by a woman with an Only Fans channel.
At times it has felt this election was more like a scene from Alice In Wonderland than a serious contest for who should govern our country.
We had followed our political leaders down the rabbit hole, and they didn’t give us straight answers.
When Sir Keir Starmer moves into No10 this morning, the head honchos at the civil service will greet him with one of the biggest in-trays of any Prime Minister in peacetime.
Top of the list will be our prisons.
Jails are bursting and we are literally running out of cells to lock convicts in.
The Tories started letting some criminals out early and Sir Keir says he will carry on doing this.
But if someone does the crime, we expect them to do the time.
And what happens when a prisoner released early ends up committing another offence — such as raping someone or beating someone up?
There are also huge structural challenges facing the nation.
Our economy is sluggish and just emerging from one of the worst inflation crises in decades.
People feel poorer. Taxes are at their highest level since the war. Our Covid- ravaged NHS is buckling and at risk of collapse.
Some 6.3million people are stuck on waiting lists — one of the biggest numbers in history.
Getting a GP or NHS dentist appointment is almost impossible in some parts of the country.
In Bristol, patients queued for six hours in the February cold when a new dental practice opened so they could register. Police ended up being called.
Our borders are as leaky as a bucket of water with holes in.
More than 13,000 migrants have washed up on our coast so far this year, and that number is only going to get much bigger.
These are serious problems.
The new Prime Minister needs big ideas to solve them.
But the issues did not get the attention they deserved during this campaign.
Instead we had six weeks of Labour and the Tories trading blows but ducking the big issues.
There was a frenzy of emergency press conferences from both sides.
Labour accused the Tories of promising “Trussite” unfunded tax cuts and gambling with our pensions.
The Conservatives said Labour will drop a tax bomb on Brits “like night follows day”.
In dizzying scenes, a roll call of big hitters doled out increasingly alarmist warnings about the bone-chilling dangers of “the other lot”.
It was hard to keep up as one breathless frontbencher after another warned of Armageddon unless their side was handed the keys to No10.
But economists combing the books were unimpressed.
Manifesto promises by Labour and the Tories were pie in the sky, they warned, with neither side being honest about the cost of improving public services.
But that stark warning was lost in the noise of battle.
It looks like Sir Keir Starmer will end up in No10 with a thumping majority.
But Sir Keir does not have the rock star appeal that Sir Tony Blair had.
Walk down any High Street and you will find people saying the same thing — we are not sold on Keir.
We don’t know what he stands for. We are not sure we like him very much.
Some don’t even recognise him.
Meanwhile, people are angry — their trust in politicians battered and bruised.
This quiet fury could grow into a deafening scream that shatters confidence in our political process altogether if we are not careful.
Sir Keir is often accused of failing to come clean about what he actually thinks and is planning when in No10.
He says he wants to stop the boats and smash the criminal gangs behind them.
Yet he dodges and obfuscates when asked plainly how he will do this without the deterrent of the Rwanda scheme.
But the time for doublespeak is over.
On her adventures in Wonderland, Alice meets Humpty Dumpty — who famously speaks nonsense to her.
Sir Keir must tell us frankly what his plans are to fix Britain.
If he doesn’t, there is a danger that he will end up like Humpty Dumpty, and have a big fall.
