Sir Keir Starmer’s tour of key battlegrounds kicked off in Scotland on Friday. His message was singular: change. And his target was singular, too: take out the SNP.

In four elections on the bounce, Labour has been nearly wiped out in Scotland by the SNP. In 2019, the party returned one MP to Westminster from Scotland. It now has two. The task in this election campaign is to turn that into dozens.

“This is an election about change, and Scotland’s voice is vital. It needs to be a leading voice,” he said in a slick campaign event with hundreds of people holding up “change” placards and cheering Sir Keir and Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar on.

General election latest: Reaction as two senior Tories stand down

“Send a message, send a message: that is the height of the SNP’s ambition, to send a message of protest to Westminster. I don’t want Scotland to send a message. I want Scotland to send a government. A Labour government.”

Ask Labour strategists, and they say Scotland is vital to get Labour over the line to a majority because of how far behind Labour were in England back in 2019. They are operating a twin attack on two failing governments – the SNP one in Holyrood and the Conservative government in Westminster – to implore voters to switch back from the SNP to kick the Tories out.

Starmer told me in Glasgow that winning in Scotland was important numerically but also to him personally, because he wants to be a prime minister, should Labour win, that governs for the whole of the UK.

He has been emphatic that there will be no deal with the SNP, whatever the outcome of this general election, to hammer home the point that if Scots want to be rid of the Conservatives they have to vote Labour in.

But in truth, it is not true that Labour need to win big in Scotland to win a general election.

Yes, since the 1950s, Labour hasn’t formed a majority with fewer than 40 seats in Scotland, but Tony Blair actually had a majority in 1997 on seats won in England alone.

To put it into context, there are 91 parliamentary constituencies in the South East of England and 59 in Scotland.

When the country moves against a government – like the polls are suggesting is happening now – and Labour are doing well in local elections in battlegrounds across England, they should be able to hit a majority without needing a huge amount of the 59 out of 650 parliamentary seats in Scotland.

It is, if you like, a version of Project Fear, as Labour try to sell to the Scots that a vote for the SNP is a vote to keep a Conservative government in.

But there is also a sense – and this is where Starmer has got lucky after 14 years of SNP dominance – that the travails of the SNP, which has been embroiled in scandal around former leader Nicola Sturgeon and her husband, Peter Murrell, the former chief executive of the SNP, and a leadership crisis, has finally given Labour an open goal to win back Scottish voters that turned away from a Labour Party that had for too long taken Scotland for granted.

But as Starmer looks to steal votes from the SNP, with Scotland a key battleground, there are fault lines in this election too for the Labour leader among his base that will emerge as a big theme of this election. As we look at geographical battlegrounds – be that Scotland, the Red Wall across parts of the Midlands, the North East and North West, or the Blue Wall in pockets of the south – there are also demographic divisions emerging. And the schism between Sir Keir Starmer and Labour-voting Muslim communities over the Israel-Hamas war is perhaps one of the most salient going into this general election, with prominent MPs from Jess Phillips to Shabana Mahmood and Wes Streeting facing challenges in their constituencies.

I asked Starmer about this on our second tour stop of the day, when he travelled to South Ribble – a Labour target that switched to Labour in 1997 only to return to the Tories in 2010 – to address building depot workers.

He said, in the wake of the West Midlands mayoral victory by a whisker, that he had listened to voters (the independent candidate in this race took tens of thousands of votes from Labour).

And he left me thinking that while he has a clear message to sell to voters in Scotland, to those who feel let down by Labour, he hasn’t got the answer.

He told me there “needs to be a ceasefire straight away” and more humanitarian aid and “the beginning of a process to a two-state solution, including recognition of Palestine” but demurred from committing to formally recognising the Palestine state in its own right, as Ireland, Norway and Spain have done in recent weeks, saying that policy was to recognise Palestine as part of a two-state solution and that “it was only going to happen if we work with our partners on it”.

The US, UK and other Western countries have backed the idea of an independent Palestine existing alongside Israel, but insists statehood should come as part of a negotiated settlement.

👉 Listen above then tap here to follow the Sky News Daily wherever you get your podcasts 👈

Starmer is at pains not to diverge from the US and other close allies as he eyes Downing Street.

But there is a cost to him when it comes to some of his traditional voters. His majority doesn’t just rest in the marginals, he has to secure his base too.

It’s taken less than 10 minutes to find someone willing to sell me abortion pills.

Dr Jane* tells me she is based in Dubai but assures me the medication will arrive in the UK in a matter of days. How pregnant you are doesn’t matter – she provides pills as late as eight months.

*Warning: This article contains some material readers may find disturbing*

But I am not in the late stages of pregnancy, and this is not the depths of the dark web we are messaging on,

This is Facebook and I’ve told Dr Jane I’m a journalist. I found her within minutes of searching for abortion pills on the site.

In the last two years, six women have faced trial in Britain for allegedly illegally procuring their own abortions, compared to just three convictions between 1861 and 2022.

In Britain, abortions are free on the NHS with pills used up to 10 weeks and when COVID hit, these were made available by post.

Medical (using pills) and surgical abortions can be performed up to 24 weeks. After this, abortions can only be performed in a limited number of circumstances, such as if the mother’s life is at risk.

Abortions have risen to the highest number on record in England and Wales, with 251,377 taking place in 2022. Abortion provider MSI Reproductive Choices said it believes pressures due to the cost-of-living crisis combined with a lack of access to contraception through stretched NHS services are both “playing a bigger role” in this.

In 2023, Carla Foster was jailed for lying to the Pills by Post scheme and taking abortion pills at 32 weeks pregnant. She spent a month in prison before an appeal moved her sentence to a suspended one.

But despite the increased availability of pills on the NHS through such schemes, abortion medication is still being sold on social media sites to people without a prescription.

Using pills bought online to abort a pregnancy is illegal under the UK’s 1861 abortion law – half of the women who faced trial since 2022 had acquired them this way.

Found within a few clicks, the pills are sold by people claiming to be doctors, but whose credentials are almost impossible to verify.

Dr Jane’s profile picture is of a smiling woman with a stethoscope around her neck – but that image is actually taken from the website of a retina specialist in Florida.

The fake Dr Jane told me via Messenger that she is a nurse in Dubai and smuggles the pills out of the hospital where she works.

For an early-stage pregnancy, it is £150. Anything above six months costs £300.

Pills can be taken as late as eight months, she says, and sends graphic images of foetuses claiming to have helped abort them. Their tiny features are visible and veined, and they are clearly dead. But whether she did help abort them is difficult to know.

A medical expert who looked at the images for me said it is impossible to tell if they were generated by AI or at what stage the miscarriages occurred. But they said they would question the credibility of anyone who sent images like these as “proof”.

“Abortion is a woman’s right. It shouldn’t be illegal,” Dr Jane says. No woman, she claims, has ever died from pills she has sold.

Eventually, she stops answering my questions and when I go to message her a week later, her account is gone.

“Dr Jane” is not an anomaly. When her account disappears, there are still dozens of others to choose from.

Prices for a pack of pills vary from £190 to more than £300 – although one seller on Telegram says I can bulk buy 10 “abortion kits” for £575 if I am interested in selling them.

In contrast, the pills are actually “very cheap” to buy direct from the manufacturer for NHS and medical providers, one gynaecologist tells me. One costs approximately 17p per tablet and the other is £10.14 per tablet.

In one Facebook group, a woman posts about needing help. Within minutes, there are multiple comments from sellers offering advice and pills. Some sellers openly post WhatsApp numbers they use to deal directly with buyers.

After I join one of these groups, I receive a message from Layla*.

Layla’s Facebook picture comes from Pinterest. With red hair, lurid eyeshadow, and black-ringed lips, it gives her account a dark feel.

I ask what she would do for someone who was over the UK’s legal limit.

Layla tells me she has done this before, that aborting after 24 weeks is going to be “painful”.

“You are going to push a baby out,” she says.

She claims to have helped one woman (not in the UK) who was 29 weeks pregnant.

Buying abortion pills from her would cost £358 as, like with Dr Jane, the price rises the later a woman is in her pregnancy. The money is paid via GCash, a Filipino payment service, which suggests that is where she is based but she claims to ship pills all around the world.

“I have a lot of clients who went through the process and they all come out successful and free,” Layla says. “No one has ever died. No one was brought to the hospital.”

But while Layla tries to paint it as low-risk, multiple qualified doctors told me that late, at-home abortions can be deeply traumatic and high risk.

“Dr Jane” also includes a package of injections in her “abortion kit” – these are sometimes used to prevent bleeding, but this form of medication can be dangerous for home use, particularly for women with high blood pressure.

A leading gynaecologist campaigning to change the abortion law, Dr Jonathan Lord, says the trauma goes beyond just the physical process, “which obviously is very traumatic”.

“The trauma is why are they doing this in the first place? To be in a situation where they’re trying get pills illegally at six months pregnant, something calamitous must have happened to their life.”

Layla is vocal when she tells me her reasons for selling the pills.

“The world needs to know that a woman’s body belongs to her and not the government,” she says.

When I tell her about the rising number of women facing trial in the UK as a result of procuring abortion pills (both from the NHS and online), she tells me she knows what she does is illegal: “But that’s not the whole story.”

Abortion at any stage is illegal in the Philippines – anyone who performs one faces six years in prison under the country’s penal code, while women who undergo the procedure face between two and six years in jail.

She started selling pills after using them herself. She already had children and was struggling financially telling me: “Our life is hard”.

Layla was 18 weeks pregnant when she finally bought her own abortion pills, because she needed time to save the money.

The woman she bought them from then offered her the chance to resell them. She now gets paid $30 (£24) for every woman she “assists”. In the last two weeks, she says she has sold pills to 14 people around the world – although none in the UK.

Layla never handles the pills herself. “There’s my… you could call her my boss. I send orders to her, and she sends those orders to the shipper.”

She says she is one of seven women working under her “boss”.

Adverts for abortion pills can be found on social media platforms including Facebook, TikTok and Telegram, but they are particularly easy to locate on the Meta platforms. It takes just a few keywords to throw up several groups and posts from sellers.

On Instagram, sellers post infographics about abortion and encourage people to private message them, or link to Telegram chats posting pictures and prices of pills. One post details how to avoid detection, with advice including making a new email address to order pills and turning off location tracking.

These sellers are “unscrupulous opportunists”, says Louise McCudden, a spokesperson for charity MSI.

McCudden believes companies, like Meta, should take responsibility for allowing the trade to continue on their platforms.

“When global social media companies refuse to properly regulate their billion-dollar platforms, it leaves vulnerable women at the mercy of scammers, crooks, and frauds,” she adds.

“Ironically, it is often fear of prosecution which causes women in vulnerable circumstances to feel they must rely on unregulated suppliers rather than accessing care within the NHS.”

Read more: What are the UK’s abortion laws and punishments for breaking them?

Venny Ala-Siurua is the executive director of Women on Web (WoW) – a non-profit online abortion service that sends abortion medication worldwide, legally providing pills to women up to 12 weeks.

WoW said it used to receive five requests every day from women in the UK, but this rapidly dropped to almost zero when the NHS introduced Pills by Post.

But Venny says “these [illegal] sellers operate very openly”.

WoW experiences a different problem and struggles with the Facebook algorithm not being able to distinguish between their content and that of these illegal sellers.

Venny herself has been permanently banned from Facebook and the site often takes down WoW’s own abortion-focused content for violating the company’s “community rules”.

“We have a team almost full-time trying to negotiate with Meta to get our content back up,” she says.

When asked about this, and Sky News’s findings, Meta says: “We want our platforms to be a place where people can access reliable information about health services such as abortion, advertisers can promote health services, and everyone can discuss and debate public policies in this space.

“Content about reproductive health must follow our rules, including those on pharmaceutical drugs and misinformation.”

Meta said it had removed violating content brought to its attention.

Telegram and TikTok did not respond to a request for comment.

An amendment by Labour MP Diana Johnson to the Criminal Justice Bill would have stopped anyone facing prosecution for ending their own pregnancy in England and Wales.

However, in the wake of the general election announcement, discussions on the bill have been shelved following an early dissolution of Parliament.

Catherine Robinson, from Right to Life UK, said Sky News’s findings of the availability of abortion pills on social media were “extremely disturbing”.

And there is little to stop these online sellers, who paint their dangerous trade as almost heroic.

In reality, it is their failure to acknowledge the hazards of facilitating late-term abortions that is putting the lives of the very women they claim to help at risk.

*Names have been changed.

Rishi Sunak has called the next general election for Thursday 4 July.

It means the nation is preparing for its first polling day since 12 December 2019.

Here’s everything you need to know about the general election and how it’s going to work…

What is a general election for?

It’s a chance for people around the UK to choose the local MP who will represent their area – known as a constituency – for up to five years in the House of Commons.

There is a choice of several candidates in each constituency and there are 650 constituencies.

Most candidates are nominated by political parties, though some stand as independents.

There are 650 seats in the House of Commons, so if an MP wins in a constituency, they win that seat in the Commons.

How does it work?

We use something called the ‘first past the post’ voting system, which means MPs win seats if they get more votes than other candidates standing in their constituency.

The party that wins an overall majority of seats – so anything more than 326 MPs – wins the election and can form the next government.

People aged 18 or over in each constituency can vote once for their preferred candidate.

You can only have your say if you are registered to vote. For this election, the deadline to register is 11.59pm on 18 June. Read on for more on how to register – or check out our guide for everything you need on registering to vote.

How does this determine who becomes prime minister?

While you can’t vote for who you want to be prime minister directly, your vote in your local constituency contributes.

That’s because the political party that wins the most seats in the House of Commons at a general election forms the new government and its leader becomes prime minister.

What constituency are you in?

The July election will be fought on new boundaries, replacing the ones that have been in place since 2010.

There are 650 seats across England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.

Just one in 10 seats – 65 – have no change to their boundaries.

That means you may be in a different constituency compared to what you were in at the last general election.

That matters because you will be voting for the politician you want to represent your constituency in parliament.

Find out what constituency you will be voting in on 4 July, how it would have voted in 2019, and how the demographic make-up has changed by entering your postcode into our lookup here.

How do I register to vote?

You have to be aged 16 or over (or 14 or over in Scotland and Wales) to register to vote.

You must also be one of the following:

• A British citizen
• An Irish or EU citizen living in the UK
• A Commonwealth citizen who has permission to enter or stay in the UK, or who does not need permission
• A citizen of another country living in Scotland or Wales who has permission to enter or stay in the UK, or who does not need permission.

The easiest and quickest way to register is online.

Alternatively, you can use a paper form. You can do this by contacting your local Electoral Registration Office and asking them to post a form to you.

Or, you can print your own form off. You’ll then need to return the completed form to your local Electoral Registration Office.

Can everyone who registers to vote actually vote in the general election?

No – the criteria for registering to vote is different to the criteria for voting in a general election. That’s because you’re registering for different types of votes, like local elections, which have more lax rules than parliamentary votes.

For example, you can vote in a local election if you’re 16 or over in some areas, but you have to be 18 or over in order to vote in a general election. More on age restrictions can be found here.

Here are the other criteria for voting in the general election:

• Must be registered to vote in the constituency
• Must be either a British citizen, a qualifying Commonwealth citizen or a citizen of the Republic of Ireland
• Cannot be subject to any ‘legal incapacity’ to vote – prisoners serving a sentence for a conviction cannot vote in UK parliamentary elections and neither can peers in the House of Lords.

Read our guide to registering to vote – including what it means to be added to the official electoral register.

How do I vote?

There are three options when it comes to voting. Whichever option you take, you must be registered to vote by the end of 18 June if you want to vote in this election.

You can vote in person at your local polling station on 4 July.

If you take this option, you’ll be sent a poll card just before an election or referendum telling you when to vote and at which polling station. It will usually be in a public building near your home, like a school or local hall.

You will be able to cast your vote any time between 7am and 10pm on the day.

Alternatively, you can vote by post. You can register to vote by post for any reason, including that you simply don’t want to go to a polling station on the day.

You can also vote by proxy, which is when someone unable to vote in person asks someone else to vote on their behalf.

For more on how to vote if you won’t be at home on polling day, read our guide to postal and proxy votes.

What happens on polling day?

Polls are open from 7am on polling day, Thursday 4 July.

You can only vote at the polling station allocated to your address.

This will be shown on your poll card. You can also enter your postcode on this website to find out where your polling station is.

You do not need to take your poll card to vote.

At the polling station, you will need to give your name and address to staff and show them your photo ID (more on the requirements for that below).

Then you will be given a ballot paper with a list of the candidates and what party they belong to.

You will vote for who you want to represent your constituency in the House of Commons – in other words, who you want your MP to be.

You vote for the candidate you want by putting a cross in the box next to their name.

There will be instructions in the polling booth telling you exactly what to do.

After you have marked your ballot paper, you fold the paper and put it in the ballot box.

For those leaving it late or who are delayed, such as by major events taking place on the same day, you must be inside the polling station or in a queue at the polling station by 10pm in order to be given a ballot paper and then vote, as laid out in rules in the Electoral Commission handbook.

What is the exit poll – and how accurate is it?

When voting closes at 10pm, the results of an exit poll are announced.

The exit poll is taken from a survey of voters in about 150 constituencies in England, Scotland and Wales that have been chosen to be demographically representative of the country.

As voters exit polling stations, they are asked who they voted for.

They mark who they voted for on a replica ballot paper and drop this in a box – replicating what they just did inside the polling station.

Analysts take these results, compare them to previous exit polls at the same polling stations and project how many seats each party will end up with once all the votes are counted.

Exit polls aren’t always perfect, but they tend to give an accurate indication of what the outcome will be.

In some years, they have predicted the winning party’s majority down to the exact number of seats – but there have been notable times exit polls have been wrong, including the 2015 exit poll that suggested a hung parliament, not a Conservative majority.

What happens when polls close?

After 10pm, once all votes are in, ballot boxes in all constituencies are taken to what’s known as a “count centre” – a large space like a community hall where counting can begin.

This is a lengthy process and goes on through the night.

Results come in throughout the night and by early morning, it is usually clear which party has the majority.

The final results tend to come in by late morning.

What is a hung parliament?

A hung parliament happens when no party has the 326 seats needed for the majority that allows them to govern outright.

Protocol means that the previous government generally remains in place while there is a period of negotiation as discussions take place to form a coalition.

It can take several weeks before parties strike an agreement to form a coalition.

If the incumbent government is unable to form a coalition big enough to rule, they may either resign and the largest opposition party may be invited to form a government, or they may try to continue to govern as a minority government.

What is the process with the new PM?

The prime minister is technically appointed by the monarch rather than the public, but the monarch honours democracy by appointing them based on which party wins the general election.

If the current government retains a majority in the new parliament after an election, it will continue in office and resume normal business.

If the election results in a clear majority for a different party, the prime minister already in office and government will immediately resign, and the King will invite the leader of the party that has won the election to form a government.

When does the new prime minister (or re-elected one) walk into Number 10?

Prime ministers, by tradition, get to move into the iconic 10 Downing Street. And of course, prime ministers who retain their role get to remain there.

It has three functions: it’s the official residence of the PM, it’s their office, and it is also the place where they entertain guests.

There isn’t a set time when a prime minister needs to move in. In fact, there is no requirement for them to move in at all if they don’t wish to.

But they do always operate at Number 10 in some capacity, even if it’s just used as their office or a place to entertain guests.

In recent times, when a prime minister has resigned or lost an election, they tend to be photographed with their families at Downing Street shortly after results are in and then drive to Buckingham Palace (or another royal residence) to formally resign.

They often make a speech outside the property’s famous black door before they leave.

New prime ministers generally go there on the same day and make a speech of their own, before entering Number 10 to applause from staff.

What are the rules on voter ID?

This will be the first general election where voters will need to take photo ID to the polling station.

There are 22 different types of ID you can use – you can find a list in our full guide to the voter ID rules.

The ID can be out of date, as long as it still looks like you and the name is the same one used to register to vote.

If you don’t have any of the accepted forms of ID, you can register for a Voter Authority Certificate.

The deadline is 26 June, and you must have already registered to vote.

If you’re voting as someone’s proxy, you need to take your own ID – not theirs.

What is tactical voting?

You may have heard the term through friends and family who are considering the best way to use their vote.

Based on what we’ve covered so far, it may sound like your only option is to vote for whichever candidate you believe will best represent your constituency.

But tactical voting is a less conventional way of voting, and is often used when someone feels their preferred candidate has little chance of getting the most votes in their constituency.

Essentially, it’s when you vote for a political party or person that you wouldn’t usually support in order to prevent another party or person from winning.

The two main ways of doing this are:

• Vote swapping – where you agree to vote for a party on someone else’s behalf, and they’ll vote for your preferred party in their constituency
• Least worst option – where you would select a different party to vote for in your constituency which you consider to be the best of the rest.

Want to know more? Read more in our guide to tactical voting.

What are the key issues the election will be fought over?

Rishi Sunak will be hoping to use the improving economic outlook to make a case that the nation should stick with him, while Sir Keir Starmer will attack the Tories’ 14-year record in government to make the case for change.

Here’s a rundown of the main battlegrounds – with more detail in our full guide to election issues.

Economy

Rishi Sunak will point to inflation coming down and recent tax cuts as signs the Conservatives are the safest hands, while hints about further tax cuts will be used to woo voters.

Labour will argue its strict fiscal rules will help bring down debt and grow the economy, likely pointing to rising food and energy bills and the mortgage chaos triggered by Liz Truss’s mini-budget.

NHS and social care

Rishi Sunak made cutting NHS waiting lists one of his main pledges, committing record funding of nearly £165bn – but a huge backlog remains.

There is also a crisis in dentistry and social care leaders have warned that rising demand and staffing issues have brought the system to its knees.

Labour’s headline pledges include promising to cut waiting times with thousands of extra appointments each week and creating shared waiting lists so hospitals can pool resources.

Immigration

Mr Sunak staked his premiership on a promise to “stop the boats” and the government’s Rwanda Bill finally became law last month – but the decision to call a summer election means planes won’t take off before people go to the polls.

Sir Keir Starmer has pledged to scrap the deal and use the money instead for a new Cross Border Police Unit to tackle small boat crossings.

Education and childcare

Education is a key dividing line between the two main parties. One of Labour’s flagship policies is to end tax breaks enjoyed by private schools to raise £1.7bn to invest in state schools.

Childcare, too, is a divisive issue. Labour has committed to keeping the government-extended free provision, but has said there are not enough staff to match the places.

Housing

The Tories pledged in their election manifesto to build 300,000 new homes a year by the mid-2020s, but that has not been achieved and the figure watered down in December 2022.

Labour has vowed to be on the side of “builders not blockers” and has announced its ambition to create 1.5 million new homes through the creation of “new towns”.

The government’s flagship renters reform and leasehold reform bills will not make it into law before the election. Labour has backed both pieces of legislation but wants to go further and says it will abolish no-fault evictions.

Crime

The criminal justice system faces major issues, with prisons overflowing, knife crime on the rise, a record-high crown court backlog, and prosecutions at an all-time low.

The Conservatives have announced plans for tougher sentences for the most serious criminals and measures to force offenders to appear in the dock.

Labour have promised to be “tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime” with pledges to fund more community police officers and give parents classes to handle anti-social behaviour.

How to watch on Sky News

Sky News will have live coverage and an award-winning line-up, bringing you everything as soon as it happens, with commentary and analysis to help you digest key developments.

Chief presenter Kay Burley will anchor Election Night Live, with analysis from Greater Manchester mayor Andy Burnham and the former leader of the Scottish Conservatives, Baroness Ruth Davidson.

They will be joined by Sky News’ political editor Beth Rigby, the presenter of our Sunday breakfast show Sir Trevor Phillips, and data and economics editor Ed Conway.

From 7am on the morning after the vote, lead politics presenter Sophy Ridge, will be live from Westminster, joined by deputy political editor Sam Coates and Sky News contributor Adam Boulton.

Watch on TV:

Freeview 233, Sky 501, Virgin 603, BT 313, YouTube and the Sky News website and app.

Streams and social:

Watch Sky News live here, and on YouTube.

We will also be posting the latest videos and stories on TikTok, X, Instagram, Facebook and WhatsApp.

Listen:

Listen to Sky News on TuneIn, and here.