How the most crucial Election in a generation will unfold (starting with the exit poll at 10pm) 

10PM 

The first drama of the night comes with the announcement of the exit poll just seconds after polling stations close. The news will be jointly announced by the BBC, Sky and ITV. The three channels will join Channel 4 in holding all night long election programmes, beginning at 9.55pm and running throughout Friday.

11PM

The race to be the first constituency to declare a result is expected to be between Newcastle Upon Tyne Central and Houghton and Sunderland South.

1.30AM 

Both North East constituencies are Labour safe seats, so a more accurate indicator of results will be provided at 1.30am when Nuneaton declares. In 2015 the seat was expected to go red, but a swing of 3 per cent towards the Conservatives proved to be a big indication that they were heading for victory in the Election.

3AM

A raft of marginals across the country will declare, including Bedford, High Peak, Newcastle-under-Lyme and Wolverhampton South West. Tory big beasts with slim majorities anxiously awaiting their fate include Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab in Esher and Walton, and former Tory Party leader Iain Duncan Smith in Chingford and Woodford Green.

Other seats declaring at this time include the hotly fought Cities of London and Westminster – and Cambridgeshire South where the incumbent, Tory defector Heidi Allen, is standing down.

Britain’s Prime Minister Boris Johnson takes part in a warm up with a junior girls football team while on the campaign trail in Cheadle Hulme yesterday 

3.30AM 

Half an hour later the key battleground of Hastings and Rye – the former seat of Amber Rudd – will declare alongside Westmorland and Lonsdale, where former Liberal Democrat leader Tim Farron is hanging on by less than 1,000 votes.

4.30AM

The Prime Minister’s constituency of Uxbridge and South Ruislip will make its declaration.

Labour has poured activists in to the constituency in the hope of claiming the first scalp of a major political party leader since 1906. But with a majority of 5,034, Mr Johnson is expected to be re-elected comfortably.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn (left) going head to head in the BBC Election Debate in Maidstone earlier this week

5AM 

Another raft of important marginals is expected to declare, including Broxtowe, Cheadle and Pudsey in West Yorkshire, which has a Tory majority of only 331.

6AM

The vast majority of seats will have declared results and we should know if Boris has the keys to No 10. Constituencies declaring late including Richmond Park, where the Tory incumbent Zac Goldsmith has a 45-vote majority, and Margaret Thatcher’s former North London seat of Finchley.

10AM

Cornwall North and Cornwall South East are expected to be the among the last seats to declare.