BORIS JOHNSON WAS in jubilant form after the election result. 

“We broke the deadlock,” he told reporters early this morning. “We ended the gridlock. We smashed the roadblock.”

This was a momentous election for the future of the UK.  

Boris Johnson will be Prime Minister with a huge Conservative majority (364 seats to Labour’s 203 with just one constituency to declare), and Brexit will almost certainly happen next month. Jeremy Corbyn will not lead Labour into another election after a disastrous defeat. 

But beyond the headlines, there is a lot more to unpack. 

In this week’s episode of The Explainer, recorded this morning as the final results were coming in, we’re joined by TUD lecturer and polling expert Dr Kevin Cunningham along with TheJournal.ie staff Ronan Duffy, Dominic McGrath and Christine Bohan, who were following the events overnight.

We give you the low-down on everything you need to know about this election. We look at whether the polls got it right; how Northern Ireland now has more nationalist MPs than unionist MPs; and how this was an unusually siloed election, with the main parties focusing on the issues important to them rather than engaging with each other. 

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This episode was put together by presenter Sinéad O’Carroll, producer Aoife Barry, assistant producers and technical operators Nicky Ryan and Laura Byrne, and executive producer Christine Bohan. Reporters were Rónán Duffy, Dominic McGrath and Christine Bohan. Design by Palash Somani.