Britain’s Prime Minister Rishi Sunak conceded defeat to the opposition Labour Party as voters in the UK general election delivered a devastating verdict on 14 years of Conservative rule.
Here is what you need to know:
Labour Party wins big: The center-left Labour won the election by a landslide, securing the biggest majority in its history. Party leader Keir Starmer celebrated the victory in front of supporters at the Tate Modern art gallery in London. “Change begins now. It feels good, I have to be honest,” he said.
Prominent Conservatives lose their seats: The Tories have had a tough night, suffering the biggest defeat since the party was formed. Among the top brass Conservatives losing their seats: the former (albeit short-lived) Prime Minister Liz Truss, House of Commons leader Penny Mordaunt, Defense Secretary Grant Shapps and Justice Secretary Alex Chalk.
Handover of power expected Friday: Sunak is expected to deliver a farewell address in front of 10 Downing Street, the famous British Prime Minister’s residence, before traveling the short distance to the Buckingham Palace to see King Charles III and formally resign. Once he is out, Starmer will have his audience with the monarch, who will ask him to form a government. The newly minted Prime Minister will then travel to the Downing Street where he will address the nation.
Reform UK ears in the right wing vote: An insurgent rightwing populist party led by the Nigel Farage secured four seats, with Farage himself getting into the parliament for the first time – after running seven times in the past.
Liberal Democrats reborn: The Liberal Democrats were on course to secure their best result ever – and will return as Britain’s third-biggest party in Westminster. They unseated several high-profile Conservatives.
Greens quadruple their seats: The Green Party won four spots in the Parliament, gaining three more seats compared to the last election in 2019.
SNP wipeout: The Scottish National Party has suffered big losses in Scotland, likely putting the question of independent Scotland to rest for now. Labour took a host of seats from the party.
Pro-Palestinian independent candidates upset Labour in three constituencies
While it undoubtedly has been a good night for Labour, its stance on the war in Gaza has cost the party votes.
Pro-Palestinian independent candidates have managed to upset Labour in three constituencies the party won in 2019: Blackburn, Leicester South and Islington North.
Adnan Hussain, who promised to make sure that opposition to “the injustice being inflicted against the people of Gaza be heard,” won in Blackburn, a constituency which had previously voted Labour in every election since it was created in 1955.
Meanwhile, Labour’s Shadow Paymaster General Jonathan Ashworth, who had been Leicester South’s MP since 2011, was unseated by the independent candidate Shockat Adam, who won 35.2% compared to Ashworth’s 32.9%.
“As a genocide is being committed in Gaza, according to all human rights observers, many have expressed feeling betrayed and ignored on this matter,” Adam said in his campaign to win the Leicester South constituency.
Former left-wing Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, who was expelled from the party in a spat over antisemitism, won the Islington North constituency as an independent. His win gives him the opportunity to challenge the current Labour leader (and next PM) Keir Starmer in parliament, who has sought to remold Labour from the Corbyn era.
However, Labour has gained the Rochdale constituency from the pro-Palestine politician George Galloway.
Galloway dramatically won the constituency in a by-election earlier this year, in which he accused the “political class” of having “failed Rochdale, failed Britain and failed Gaza.”
Liz Truss loses her seat, an epic collapse for the short-lived former prime minister
Britain’s former Prime Minister Liz Truss has suffered another unprecedented humiliation, losing her seat and being dumped from parliament less than two years after she led the country.
Truss was prime minister for just six weeks, by some distance the shortest stint in British history. Her premiership collapsed after a shambolic financial plan spooked markets and investors and caused the value of the pound to plummet.
She refused to speak after her defeat, leaving the stage with her fellow candidates instead, attempting to retain a steely look on her face.
Truss lost by 630 votes. She picked up 11,217 votes, to Labour’s 11,847.
Her defeat is one of the most staggering moments in the long history of British elections. It trumps the famous moment in 1997 when Defence Secretary Michael Portillo lost his seat; even among the worst-case forecasts for the Conservatives, few imagined that Truss could be defeated in her once ultra-safe Tory safe.
Rishi Sunak had sought to distance the Conservatives from Truss’s tenure, but she nonetheless represented the party in the seat she has held since 2010.
She now becomes the face of the Conservatives’ collapse, on an unprecedented night that saw the ruling party thoroughly rejected by the electorate.
Record number of women elected to parliament
Seats are still being declared on what has been a gripping election night, but it’s already official: There will be a record number of female lawmakers in the new House of Commons when it returns.
It follows a trend from the past few elections in which the number of women in parliament has increased.
So far, some 242 female MPs have been elected to parliament. The previous record set in 2019 was 220. Before that in 2017, it was 207 and 196 in 2015.
In Scotland, SNP loses scores of seats, including several in capital city
The Scottish National Party has lost scores of seats across the country, including a number in Scotland’s capital city Edinburgh.
The party has lost at least 38 seats in total, including Edinburgh North and Leith, Edinburgh East and Musselburgh, and Edinburgh South West — all of which were picked up by the Labour Party.
Most of the seats the SNP lost have been Labour gains, but two, Mid Dunbartonshire and North East Fife, were lost to the Liberal Democrats.
Labour has won a total of 37 seats so far across Scotland. The Conservative Party meanwhile, has only won in one constituency in Scotland so far — Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk.
The left-leaning SNP has led Scotland’s devolved government since 2007, and it forced an independence vote in 2014 in which Scottish voters opted to remain part of the United Kingdom.
The SNP descended into disorder last year amid a widely publicized police investigation into the party’s financial irregularities, which eroded its public support.
Conservative Party loses all its MPs in Wales
The Conservative Party has lost all 14 of its members of parliament in Wales, as Welsh Secretary David TC Davies lost his seat to Labour.
Davies finished second in his constituency of Monmouthshire, with 34.8% of the vote, compared to Labour candidate Catherine Fookes’ 41.3%.
Three other former Welsh secretaries lost their seats: Alun Cairns lost to Labour in Vale of Glamorgan, Stephen Crabb lost to Labour in Mid and South Pembrokeshire, and Simon Hart lost to Plaid Cymru in Caerfyrddin.
Australian and Canadian leaders congratulate Starmer
Leaders from several Commonwealth nations have started to send well-wishes to Britain’s next prime minister Keir Starmer, who will later Friday travel to Buckingham Palace where he will be asked by King Charles to form a government.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau posted a photo of himself and Starmer on X, writing that they have “lots of work ahead.”
Meanwhile, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese sent “congratulations to my friend and new UK Prime Minister @Keir_Starmer on his resounding election victory.” He added in a post on X that he was looking “forward to working constructively” with the incoming Labour government.
PM Rishi Sunak and Chancellor Jeremy Hunt will return to parliament, but other prominent MPs have lost their seats
With the UK’s electoral map changing fundamentally, from a large Conservative majority in 2019 to a large Labour majority this election, numerous prominent politicians have already lost their seats:
- Former Prime Minister Liz Truss suffered another unprecedented humiliation, losing her seat by 630 votes and being dumped from parliament less than two years after she led the country.
- Leader of the House of Commons Penny Mordaunt was unseated by Labour in the Portsmouth North constituency. Mordaunt, who served as defense secretary in 2019 and before that international development secretary, was first elected as the constituency’s Conservative MP in 2010.
- Defence Secretary Grant Shapps lost the constituency he had been the MP for since 2005, Welwyn Hatfield, which Labour gained. Meanwhile, Justice Secretary Alex Chalk lost his Cheltenham seat to the Liberal Democrats.
- Prominent right-wing Conservative Jacob Rees-Mogg will no longer be an MP after losing in the Somerset North East and Hanham constituency. While Labour candidate Dan Norris received 40.6% of the vote, Rees-Mogg, a prominent Brexiteer who became business secretary under Liz Truss’ premiership, came second with 30.2% of the vote.
- Education Secretary Gillian Keegan has been unseated by the Liberal Democrats in Chichester. The Conservatives had won Chichester in every general election since 1924, but this time the Liberal Democrats received 49.2% of the vote and the Conservatives only 25.7%.
- Conservative Robert Buckland, previously Welsh secretary (July to October 2022) and justice secretary (2019 to 2021), lost in Swindon South. Buckland received just 26.9% of the vote, while the Labour candidate Heidi Alexander received 48.4%. Alexander was previously the Labour MP for Lewisham East from 2010 to 2018, before resigning from parliament to become deputy mayor of London for transport — a position she held until 2021.
- Conservative Thérèse Coffey, who has held numerous senior government positions including health secretary, was unseated by Labour in the Suffolk Coastal constituency. The Conservatives had won the constituency every election since it was created in 1983, but this time Labour received 31.7% of the vote compared to the Conservatives’ 29.5%.
- Veterans’ Minister Johnny Mercer has also found himself without a seat in the new parliament. He lost in the Plymouth Moor View constituency, where Labour won with 41.2% of the vote compared to the Conservatives’ 28.1%. In 2019, Mercer won a large majority in the seat, gaining 60.7% of the vote.
- Conservative chief whip and former Welsh Secretary Simon Hart will also no longer be an MP. He lost in Caerfyrddin, in Wales, coming third place behind both Labour and Plaid Cymru, who won the seat.
- The Conservative Party’s deputy chairman Jonathan Gullis lost in the Stoke-on-Trent North. While in 2019, Gullis won 52.3% of the vote in the constituency, he received just 26.3% this time around. Labour candidate David Williams won the constituency, receiving 40.3% of the vote.
- Labour has also taken Transport Secretary Mark Harper’s seat in the Forest of Dean. Labour’s Matt Bishop ousted Harper – who was elected to parliament in 2005 – with just 278 votes.
- However, it’s not only prominent Conservative MPs who have lost their seats: Labour’s Thangam Debbonaire lost the Bristol Central constituency.
- Debbonaire was expected to become culture secretary under a Labour government, but her hopes were dashed after Green Party co-leader Carla Denyer won 56.6% of the constituency’s vote, compared to Debbonaire’s 32.6%.
- Meanwhile, Labour’s Jonathan Ashworth, who was expected to become paymaster general in a Labour government, lost the Leicester South constituency to an independent candidate, Shockat Adam.
“Change begins now,” Keir Starmer tells victory rally in London
The soon-to-be new UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer has addressed cheering supporters at a Labour Party victory rally in central London, and pledged “national renewal” following 14 years of Conservative rule.
“You campaigned for it, you fought for it, you voted for it and now it has arrived. Change begins now,” Starmer told Labour staff. “It feels good, I have to be honest … This is what it is for. A changed Labour party, ready to serve our country.”
However, Starmer cautioned that having “a mandate like this comes with a great responsibility.”
Speaking a few moments after Prime Minister Rishi Sunak conceded defeat in the general election, Starmer said, “Our task is nothing less than renewing the ideas that hold this country together. National renewal. If you work hard, if you play by the rules, this country should give you a fair chance to get on… We have to restore that.”
He continued: “We have to return politics to public service, show that politics can be a force for good. Make no mistake, that is the great test for politics in this era. The fight for trust is the battle that defines our age.”
Senior Conservative Jacob Rees-Mogg loses seat
Jacob Rees-Mogg, senior Conservative figure and former leader of the House of Commons, has become the latest election night upset after losing his seat.
Labour’s Dan Norris garnered 20,739 votes in in Somerset North East and Hanham, while Rees-Mogg secured 15,420 votes.
Earlier Friday, Rees-Mogg summed up the party’s fortunes after voters delivered a devastating verdict on the ruling Conservative Party’s 14 years in power. He said simply that “there’s no way of describing this as anything other than a bad night for the Conservative Party.”
Labour has officially won the election
Labour has won 326 seats, the crucial number that secures them a parliamentary majority and ensures Keir Starmer will become prime minister in the coming hours.
Minutes earlier, outgoing PM and Conservative Party leader Rishi Sunak conceded defeat, telling people at the count in his seat: “I am sorry.”
“The Labour Party has won this general election,” Sunak said, adding that he had called Starmer to congratulate him and concede the election.
The milestone marks the end of one era and the start of another; the Conservatives have ruled Britain for 14 years, but Labour has ousted them from power for the first time since 1997.
Five years ago, when the Tories won a thumping majority, this moment would have seemed unthinkable. But Starmer has turned his party around while the Conservatives collapsed, slumping from scandal to scandal and changing their leader twice since that vote.
There are still many more seats to declare, and Labour is on course for a huge majority that will make Starmer a powerful prime minister. He will travel to Buckingham Palace on Friday to formally take control of the country.
Rishi Sunak concedes defeat, saying “Labour has won this election”
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has conceded defeat in the general election, telling people at the count in his seat: “I am sorry.”
“The Labour Party has won this general election,” Sunak said, adding that he has called Keir Starmer to congratulate him and concede the election.
Just 20 voters decided a crucial seat
The Conservatives have held a key seat by the narrowest of margins: just 20 people ensured that party’s chairman Richard Holden won Basildon and Billericay.
A recount was ordered in the constituency, which went right down to wire: if just 11 votes that were initially counted for the Conservatives had in fact been for Labour, the seat would have turned red.
This constituency has been an extremely secure stronghold for the Conservatives; so safe that Holden moved himself from a northeastern seat to contest this one, against the opposition of local Tories.
But the Conservatives’ collapse and Labour’s surge turned it into a stunningly close battleground. The final tally put Holden on 12,905 votes; Labour’s Alex Harrison on 12,885 votes and Reform UK’s Stephen Conlay on 11,354 votes.
House of Commons leader Penny Mordaunt loses seat in most high-profile defeat so far
Penny Mordaunt, the House of Commons leader and a potential frontrunner in the impending race for the leadership of the Conservative Party, has lost her seat – the most high-profile loss of the night so far.
Mordaunt, who has been an MP since 2010, was dislodged by Labour challenger Amanda Martin in Portsmouth North. Martin received 14,495 votes to Mordaunt’s 13,715 votes.
Mordaunt beat Martin in 2019 with a majority of more than 15,000 votes.
Her defeat will be a blow to moderate Conservatives who are hoping to wrest control of the party away from its populist wing; Mourdaunt ran against Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak in the race to replace Boris Johnson as leader in 2022, and would have been expected to run again in another contest.
She also won attention around the world as the “lady in blue” at King Charles’ coronation.
Right-wing populist Nigel Farage becomes MP for the first time after winning in Clacton
Nigel Farage, the right-wing populist leader of the Reform UK party, has become an MP at the eighth attempt, winning a seat in the heavily pro-Brexit town of Clacton.
Farage’s Reform UK party has attacked the Conservatives on their failure to bring down rates of legal and illegal migration, and their message won over a considerable number of socially conservative former Tory voters.
The veteran Euroskeptic played a leading role in bringing about Britain’s departure from the European Union, and has remained a divisive and disruptive figure in the country’s politics since.
But he has never been elected to parliament, losing seven elections since 1994 before this victory. He won Clacton on a massive swing towards Reform, picking up 21,225 votes to the Conservatives’ 12,820.
“It’s not just disappointment with the Conservative Party. There is a massive gap on the centre right of British politics and my job is to fill it. And that’s exactly what I’m going to do,” Farage said after winning the seat.
He pledged to “challenge the general election properly in 2029,” and promised to turn his rhetoric towards Labour as they seem set to enter government.
His presence during the election campaign upended the Tories’ efforts to win back socially conservative, pro-Brexit voters. Now, he’ll likely be a prominent outside voice as the Conservatives decide on their next direction as the new opposition party.
CNN visited Clacton in the run-up to the election, to take the temperature of voters and assess how Farage’s anti-immigration message was received.
Former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn defeats his old party standing as an independent
Labour’s ex-leader, the left-wing politician Jeremy Corbyn, has defeated his former party in a unique battle in London’s Islington North, dealing a symbolic blow to his successor Keir Starmer.
Corbyn led Labour to two election defeats in 2017 and 2019, and was later suspended by the party for his response to an antisemitism scandal that erupted within Labour under his watch.
But the left-wing veteran mounted a challenge as an independent candidate in the north London constituency he has represented since 1983. He defeated Labour’s Praful Nargund, winning 24,120 votes to Nargund’s 16,873.
“Our campaign was a positive one. Our campaign did not get into the gutter of politics, as is too often happening in this country,” Corbyn said after winning.
Winning this seat was a huge priority for Labour, both as a symbolic marker of how dramatically the party’s ideology has shifted since Corbyn’s tenure, and to avoid the prospect of the politician leading a small throng of left-wing opponents to Starmer within parliament.
Now Corbyn will be expected to lead a throng of opposition from Labour’s left as Starmer looks set to govern in the coming years.
Two Cabinet ministers lose seconds apart
Two Conservative Cabinet ministers have lost their seats just seconds apart, as the scale of the Tories’ misery increases on a devastating election night.
Defence Secretary Grant Shapps lost his seat to Labour in Welwyn Hatfield, the most high-profile defeat of the night so far.
Shapps has held a number of Cabinet positions under different prime ministers, including energy security and net zero secretary, business, energy and industrial strategy secretary and home secretary. He was elected to parliament in 2005.
He lost his seat to Labour’s Andrew Lewin, who won by 3,799 votes. It’s quite the fall from grace after he secured his seat back in 2019 with a majority of almost 11,000 votes.
He had been one of a number of prominent Tory candidates expected to lose their seat after the exit poll released.
Almost at the same time, Justice Secretary Alex Chalk lost his seat to the Liberal Democrats.
The twin defeats painted the perfect picture of a miserable night for the Conservatives, who have been carved up by Labour and the Lib Dems across the country.
And it could get worse – more Cabinet ministers are at risk, including the Chancellor Jeremy Hunt – in what could be an unprecedented evening.
What the UK front pages are looking like
We’re starting to get a glimpse of the Friday morning front pages which are obviously being dominated by the results of the exit poll, which foreshadows a Labour landslide and an undeniably poor showing from the Conservatives.
The Sun has opted to emphasize Labour’s win with the electoral map and a front page emblazoned with “Britain sees red.”
Tabloid paper the Daily Mirror has a full page shot of the Labour leader and his wife as they cast their vote on Thursday, with the headline: “KEIR WE GO.”
Meanwhile, the Daily Express has gone with “CRUSHING BLOW TO TORY PARTY IN ELECTION WIPEOUT” with a photo of Conservative Party leader Rishi Sunak and his wife.
Keir Starmer says “it is time for us to deliver” after winning seat
Ker Starmer, who seems likely to be Britain’s next prime minister, said the country is “ready for change” after winning his seat in north London.
“Tonight, people here and around the country have spoken. They are ready for change,” Starmer said at the count.
Starmer was beaming as he arrived at the count, posing for selfies and taking his time to work his way through supporters and activists.
On stage, he was joined by a number of novelty candidates – including one dressed as Elmo – a unique feature of British democracy.
“I promise this: Whether you voted for me or not, I will serve every person in this constituency,” Starmer said.
Left-wing populist George Galloway loses his seat to Labour
Labour has narrowly defeated the left-wing populist George Galloway in a key race in Rochdale, easing concerns within the party that its stance on Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza had damaged its reputation among Muslim voters.
Galloway won this seat months ago in a by-election, running on a heavily pro-Palestinian platform in the northwestern English town, which has a large Muslim population.
But Labour has returned to power in the constituency, beating Galloway by 33% to 29%.
Labour was initially strongly supportive of Israel’s war against Hamas, but it has become increasingly critical of its conduct in Gaza and now supports a ceasefire, along with the return of hostages held by Hamas.
Its early response nonetheless hit its support among Muslim voters during May’s local elections, a trend that has worried many in the party.
Populist Reform UK party wins its first seat of the night
Reform UK’s Lee Anderson has won election in Ashfield, giving the right-wing populist group its first victory of the night.
Anderson was formerly the deputy chair of the Conservative Party, but he defected to Reform in January, criticizing Rishi Sunak’s record on controlling migration.
He called Ashfield the “capital of common sense,” telling people at his count: “This wonderful place which I call my home is going to have a massive say in how this country is shaped in the future. I want my country back and Ashfield can play their part in that.”
Winning this seat was a key target for the right-wing party, and it will hope to add a second soon, when results are announced in Clacton, where the party’s leader Nigel Farage is standing.
Reform were projected to win 13 seats in the exit poll. But the party earlier failed to pick up two seats in which the exit poll had projected them winners, suggesting it may fall short of that eye-catching overall predicted figure.
“Reports of my demise had been greatly exaggerated,” Labour’s Dan Jarvis joked, after winning Barnsley North despite the exit poll projecting he would lose it to Reform.
“I’ve watched colleagues say stupid things:” Furious backlash underway among Conservatives
An angry backlash among Conservatives has begun, with senior Tory figures hitting out at the direction of the party under Rishi Sunak.
Robert Buckland, the former justice minister who was ousted by Labour in Swindon earlier this evening, launched a blistering attack on his former colleagues after becoming the first Tory to lose their seat earlier tonight.
“I’m fed up with performance art politics,” Buckland told the BBC. “I’ve watched colleagues in the Conservative Party strike poses, write inflammatory op-eds and say stupid things they have no evidence for instead of concentrating on doing the job that they were elected to do.
“I think we’ve seen in this election astonishing ill-discipline within the party,” he added.
And the party was attacked from the right, too.
Andrea Leadsom, a former business secretary, told the BBC the party was no longer “Conservative enough,” and said voters are “sick of all this woke stuff.”
It epitomizes the problem Sunak has faced throughout his premiership: an inability to appease either the left or right flanks of his party.
Sunak has flirted with populist messaging — particularly on migration — and promoted right-wing colleagues to government posts. But those decisions often ended in rows, such as with Lee Anderson and Suella Braverman, both of whom quit their roles in protest at Sunak’s failure to bring down illegal migration.
Sunak has meanwhile failed to build bridges with the moderate wing of his party, with many center-right lawmakers alienated by his approach and imploring the party to compete with Labour for votes in the center ground of British politics.
Starmer has “net unfavorability ratings” despite predicted landslide for Labour, expert tells CNN
Despite a predicted landslide win for the UK’s Labour Party, its leader Keir Starmer may have some work to do on his favorability raings, according to one think tank director.
“We see net unfavorability ratings for Keir Starmer, even though he’s going to have this massive, massive majority,” Anand Menon, director of think tank UK in a Changing Europe told CNN. “Beneath this sort of happy story for Labour, there are some warning signs about levels of dissatisfaction with prevailing political trends in this country.”
Menon noted that Starmer intends to “reset relations with European states and the European Union” after a tumultuous few years between the UK and EU after Brexit.
People in the UK are “disillusioned,” said Menon, who is a professor of European Politics and Foreign Affairs at King’s College London. “If you look at the polling, there’s a significant majority of people saying Brexit was the wrong decision, not the right decision.”
“If you do a focus group with voters, they might say Brexit has been bad, Brexit has been a failure. But if you say to them, how about we do another referendum then and go through it all again? You will get a collective eyeroll and a groan and say actually, please, let’s not go through that again,” he told CNN.
How Labour’s “ming vase” campaign steered it to victory
The Labour Party had a very good problem at the start when the election was called: How do you run a campaign that absolutely everyone expects you to win?
Keir Starmer’s party had enjoyed a double-digit lead in opinion polls for the entirety of Rishi Sunak’s premiership, which began in October 2022, and was guaranteed to win the election as long as it didn’t rock the boat during the six-week campaign.
Labour appealed to an electorate tired of the Tories’ chaotic period in government with a single-word slogan: “Change.” But Starmer simultaneously followed a path that some party strategists took to calling a “ming vase” approach, metaphorically looking after a precious and delicate lead in opinion polls. The party repeated its key themes, avoided the temptation to unveil any major policy announcements, and pledged time after time that the party would keep a tight lid on public finances.
The party’s manifesto was modest, pledging to revive Britain’s flagging public services without a large injection of cash. That has raised eyebrows by independent watchdogs, including the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS), which said their public spending offer was “tiny, going on trivial.”
But that was a calculation Labour has stuck to, as they sought to gain a reputation as a sensible, moderate party that can appeal to former Tory voters.
Starmer avoided gaffes, and didn’t interrupt his opponent Rishi Sunak when he was making mistakes of his own.
And he became an increasingly difficult rival for the Conservatives to land successful attacks against. Sunak strived to convince voters that Starmer would increase taxes, make Britain less safe, and that he didn’t have the stamina for the job of prime minister — but none of these charges appear to have stuck.
Labour’s projected victory is a personal triumph for Keir Starmer that once seemed impossible
The Labour Party’s projected victory marks a historic moment in modern British political history and a huge personal triumph for Keir Starmer, the Labour leader who is set to become the country’s next prime minister.
The UK broadcasters’ exit poll suggests Labour will have a parliamentary majority of 170, returning the party to office for the first time since it lost the 2010 election to the Conservatives, who have been in power ever since.
Starmer’s victory is all the more remarkable considering the journey that Labour has been on since the last general election in 2019. Then, the party suffered its worst loss in a generation under former leader Jeremy Corbyn, who stood on a hard-left platform.
A path back to credibility and even being competitive in a general election looked potentially a decade off, as the Conservatives emerged triumphant from the carnage of Brexit under the charismatic – but chaotic – leadership of Boris Johnson.
Johnson not only defeated his political rivals, but completely upended the norms of British politics. Under his leadership, his party won seats in traditional working-class Labour areas once deemed out of reach to Conservatives. For a year at least, he seemed untouchable.
It was in this context that Starmer took control of a broken Labour Party on April 4, 2020. On that day, David Lammy, one of his Labour colleagues, took him to one side and warned Starmer: “Set yourself a 10-year cycle. You might just lose the next election, and then you can go again.”
According to Lammy, Starmer smiled and said “No, I can do this in five.”
Labour will work with Trump if he becomes US president, UK’s shadow foreign secretary says
A Labour government would work with Donald Trump if he is voted back in as US president, the UK’s shadow foreign secretary has said. Labour is projected to win 410 seats in the British election and take a massive parliamentary majority of 170 seats, according to the exit poll.
When asked if Labour would work with Trump, David Lammy told ITV his party would work “with whomever the American people decide should be incumbent at the White House.”
He noted that both the UK and US are “democratic countries,” highlighting that the two countries work successfully together in areas such as intelligence and armed forces.
“The British people have chosen change:” Labour politicians react with delight to exit poll
Senior Labour politicians have praised Keir Starmer for taking his party to the “cusp of power” following its projected success in the exit poll.
Labour’s shadow health secretary Wes Streeting said he was “delighted” by the exit poll, which he called “remarkable.”
“I’ve seen many exit polls over the years. They don’t tend to look like these ones, and if we have won this general election, that is historic for the Labour Party,” he told the BBC.
In the first victory speech of the night, Labour shadow education secretary Bridget Phillipson, who won Houghton and Sunderland South, said the British people have “chosen the leadership of Keir Starmer.”
“Tonight the British people have spoken and if the exit poll this evening is again a guide to results across our country – as it so often is – then after 14 years the British people have chosen change,” she said.
Labour Mayor of London Sadiq Khan said Starmer had demonstrated “a sense of conviction and confidence.”
“It’s been difficult, there have been some wobbly moments… In my wildest dreams, four and a half years ago, did I think we’d be here? No,” he told the BBC. He added that the Labour Party under the leadership of Starmer has been taken to “the cusp of power.”
“This, folks, is huge.” Farage celebrates exit poll and falsely criticizes media
Reform UK’s leader Nigel Farage has described his party’s projected success in the UK election as “huge.”
In a video posted on X, Farage said: “It’s midnight. There are two results in from the northeast of England that put Reform on 30% of the vote. That is way more than any possible prediction or projection. It’s almost unbelievable.”
The UK broadcasters’ exit poll predicts that Reform – which did not exist in its current form at the last UK general election – will win 13 seats.
“What does it mean? It means we’re going to win seats. Many, many seats, I think, right now across the country,” Farage added.
“This is going to be six million votes plus. This, folks, is huge.”
Farage also attacked the media claiming that no Reform spokespeople were featured in election night coverage. “There’s not a single representative on there from Reform UK,” he said – a claim that was demonstrably false. Britain’s Channel 4 played the clip and then cut directly to a Reform representative in the studio, Ann Widdecombe.
The BBC and Sky News had featured David Bull, the deputy leader of Reform, prominently in their live coverage.
As Europe turns right, why is a center-left party projected to win by a landslide in the UK?
The United Kingdom’s decision to hand the center-left Labour Party a parliamentary majority, according to the exit poll, comes at the same time Europe is broadly in the grip of what some call a right-wing populist surge.
Last month’s European elections saw a historic number of lawmakers from hard-right and far-right parties elected to the European Parliament. The results caused such chaos that French President Emmanuel Macron called a snap parliamentary election in his own country, the first round of which the far-right National Rally won last week.
A government comprised of far-right figures was formed in the Netherlands this week. Italy is led by the most right-wing leader since the rule of fascist wartime leader Benito Mussolini. These electoral victories and the prospect of populist right-wingers in power is no longer a surprise in European countries.
There are many reasons for this rise in populism, often unique to individual countries. But broadly speaking, a number of European countries are suffering from sluggish economies, high immigration and higher energy prices, due in part to the drive for carbon net zero. The European Union is often blamed for national woes by populist politicians and breathes oxygen into an increasingly Euroskeptic national discourse.
So why is Britain, the only country where Euroskepticism led to a referendum on EU membership, projected to buck this trend?
Despite the expected seat count, the British right is far from dead. The Conservative Party, despite its undeniably disappointing night, is set to outperform the expectations of a number of opinion polls during the campaign, some of which had it down to double digits in parliament.
Another party that is set to exceed polling expectations is the populist right-wing Reform UK, led by long-term scourge of the Conservatives, Nigel Farage, who is perhaps best known these days for his friendship with former US President Donald Trump. Before this, he was credited with making Brexit possible after decades of campaigning against the UK’s membership of the EU.
Farage’s political success to date has all come without him holding a parliamentary seat. Now he is not only projected to have a seat himself, but also 12 colleagues to hurl grenades at Labour leader Keir Starmer. While this may seem small fry compared to Starmer’s anticipated three-figure majority, Farage will no doubt influence the debate on the future direction of the Conservative Party, possibly dragging it further to the right.
It is possible that Farage’s splitting of the right has actually helped Starmer increase his majority in parliament. An odd quirk of British politics is that the percentage of votes a party gets doesn’t necessarily translate to seats. And with Reform performing well in many of the seats that Labour will ultimately win, the hard-right will not only be impossible to ignore in this parliament, but it could easily see its influence grow further.
Britain suffers from many of the same problems as other European countries. If Starmer falters as prime minister, there is every chance that the popular right could continue to capture the public’s imagination, as it has elsewhere in Europe.
Labour gains first new seat of the night, sweeping out a former Conservative minister in Swindon South
The first of many Labour gains has just been announced – the party has taken Swindon South from the Conservatives.
Robert Buckland, who served as a justice minister in Boris Johnson’s government, has been ousted by Heidi Alexander, a former Labour MP who returned to contest this seat.
The seat, in western England, was won by the Conservatives last time with an 11% lead, according to the notional results. But Labour earned a thumping majority this time – they won 21,676 votes to the Conservatives’ 12,070.
A disastrous Conservative campaign puts the party on the brink of a worst-ever defeat
The sight was pitiful – and could easily have been avoided. When Rishi Sunak called the snap vote outside 10 Downing Street, he was drowned out – first by the pouring rain, then by the sound of the D:Ream song “Things Can Only Get Better,” the anthem of Labour’s 1997 election landslide, blaring from a nearby boombox.
Things did not get better for the Conservatives. The campaign went from bad to worse, ending in what is projected to be a heavy defeat. Trying to make smalltalk at a Welsh brewery at an early campaign event, Sunak asked punters if they were excited for the soccer, only to be reminded that Wales had not qualified for the ongoing European Championship. In another campaign stop at the Northern Ireland shipyard that built the Titanic, Sunak, seemingly unaware of the irony, was asked if he, too, was captaining a sinking ship.
But those gaffes look minor when compared to Sunak’s disastrous decision to leave the 80th anniversary commemorations of the D-Day landings early to give a routine TV interview that would not air until the following week. The Tories’ patriotic heartlands were outraged: The prime minister left veterans on the beaches. Nigel Farage, the leader of the hard-right Reform UK party, was delighted: Here was an opportunity to snatch more votes from dyspeptic Tories.
Meanwhile, one last sleaze scandal had been brewing. It was revealed that two Conservative candidates and its director of campaigning were under investigation by the gambling watchdog for allegedly placing bets on the date of the general election.
“Gamble-gate,” as it became known, summed up what for many voters may be their lasting impression of the outgoing Conservative government: A prime minister too weak to control many of his party, and a party more interested in its own fortunes than those of the country.
In pictures: Labour Party leader Keir Starmer
The center-left Labour Party will win Britain’s general election by a landslide, according to a major exit poll, ending a 14-year era of Conservative rule in decisive fashion and putting its leader Keir Starmer on course to become prime minister.
Once a leading human-rights lawyer, Starmer became director of public prosecutions in 2008, running the Crown Prosecution Service of England and Wales — a high-profile job for which he was knighted, making him the first-ever Labour leader to enter the job with the prefix Sir to their name.
Starmer, 61, has promised to be the agent of change that Britain needs. He has pledged to grow the country’s economy by reforming planning laws and investing in a new industrial strategy. He has said he will set up a national wealth fund with £7.3 billion ($9.2 billion) of public money that will help pay for the transition to net zero emissions.
Critics on the right say that Starmer will need to raise taxes to fund his plans, while skeptics on the left say his manifesto is not bold or ambitious enough to change Britain for the better.
Labour win a second seat, and the Conservatives slump again
Labour has won Blyth and Ashington, the second seat of the night to declare, with the populist Reform UK party again putting in a strong showing and coming second.
Labour won 50% of the vote to Reform’s 27%, and the Tories slipped to 15%.
This is a new constituency, created after the boundaries of the UK’s 650 seats were adjusted following the most recent election in 2019. The borders of most seats in the country have changed at least slightly since that vote, as they do every few decades.
But Labour would have won this seat with 48% of the vote had it existed in 2019, to the Conservatives’ 34%, according to notional calculations.
The UK’s exit poll is usually very accurate
A reminder: the UK’s election exit poll is usually a very accurate barometer of how many seats each party has won.
But, as politicians are reminding broadcasters, it is just a poll.
The exit poll was conducted Thursday at polling stations across the country, collecting a huge sample from across the UK of how people voted. It is then modelled by a panel of experts, and closely guarded from the public and the media.
In 2019, the exit poll predicted the Conservatives would win 368 seats, just three more than they did when the final results were in. Two years earlier, it missed the Tories’ seat total by three, this time in the opposite direction.
The first results from the night are in
Sunderland South has won the race to declare the first results of the night – and they show a solid Labour result and a huge uptick for the populist party Reform UK.
Labour held the seat, as it was virtually certain to do, and Reform overtook the Conservatives to take second place.
Bridget Phillipson, Labour’s shadow Education Secretary, becomes the first MP to be elected into the new parliament.
What the results indicate: Labour won 47% of the vote in the seat, while Reform picked up 29%. The Conservatives slipped to just 14%.
This is a traditional Labour stronghold, though the party won it by a narrower margin at the 2019 election – picking up 41% of the vote to 33% for the Conservatives.
More clues as to the results of the night will come soon, as a handful of seats are expected to declare in the next half hour.
But Conservatives will be concerned by their drop in Sunderland, while Reform will be hopeful that it can establish itself as a second-placed party in many more seats, while gaining a handful across the country.
Exit poll projection of a Labour landslide has margins similar to Tony Blair’s 1997 win
Labour’s predicted landslide win is a similar margin to the one that swept the party’s then leader Tony Blair into Downing Street in 1997, according to Gideon Skinner, senior UK Director of Politics at market research company Ipsos.
Skinner told CNN the predicted Labour win could be due, in part, to tactical voting among typical Labour and Liberal Democrat voters.
In 1997, Blair’s Labour party won 418 seats, the largest majority of seats since 1945. The Conservative Party won 165 seats.
According to this year’s exit poll, Labour will win 410 seats. That will hand Keir Starmer a massive parliamentary majority of 170 seats, just shy of the party’s greatest-ever result.
The Conservatives drop to just 131 seats, a stunning collapse by a governing party, according to the poll.
