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What we know
- Britain's Labour Party has handed a brutal defeat to the ruling Conservatives. Keir Starmer, the party leader, will be prime minister, replacing Rishi Sunak.
- Exit polls indicate Labour is poised to take 410 seats in Parliament, versus 131 for the Conservatives — the fewest seats in their history.
- Starmer is a former prosecutor and a centrist who supports NATO and Ukraine — foreign policy views that align closely with President Joe Biden's. But he could be at odds with Donald Trump were he to win a second term.
World leaders congratulate Starmer after Labour wins election
Congratulations are already coming in for Starmer, who is set to succeed Sunak as prime minister after a decisive win by his Labour Party.
“Congratulations to my friend and new UK Prime Minister @Keir_Starmer on his resounding election victory,” Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said in a post on X. His congratulations were echoed by New Zealand Prime Minister Christopher Luxon.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau also congratulated Starmer on a “historic” victory. “Lots of work ahead to build a more progressive, fair future for people on both sides of the Atlantic,” he posted on X.
Israel President Isaac Herzog thanked Sunak “for standing with the Israeli people” during Israel’s war with Hamas and said he looked forward to working with Starmer “to bring our hostages home” from the Gaza Strip.
‘Change begins now’: Starmer celebrates Labour majority after 14 years in opposition
The Labour Party is ready to “restore Britain to the service of working people,” Starmer said after the election was called for the center-left party.
The victory by Labour, which easily secured the 326 seats necessary for a parliamentary majority, ends 14 years of rule by the Conservative Party, with Starmer set to succeed Sunak as prime minister.
“We did it,” Starmer told a cheering crowd in an early-morning speech in central London. “You voted for it and now it has arrived. Change begins now.”
“A weight has been lifted, a burden finally removed from the shoulders of this great nation, and now we can look forward again,” he said.
Keir Starmer leads Labour to win U.K. election in a landslide
LONDON — Britain woke up today to the scene of a political earthquake. The opposition Labour Party, after 14 years in the political wilderness, has handed a brutal defeat to the ruling Conservatives.
Party leader Keir Starmer is now certain to become prime minister in the coming hours, replacing his Conservative Party counterpart, Rishi Sunak, who has presided over one of the worst electoral losses in British political history.
“We did it,” Starmer told a cheering crowd in central London. “You voted for it and now it has arrived. Change begins now.”
“A burden finally removed from the shoulders of this great nation,” he said. Now the country can “move forward again.”
PM Sunak concedes huge Conservative defeat as he retains his seat
A grave-looking Sunak retained his seat but acknowledged it had been a “difficult night” as the opposition Labour Party looked set to win in a landslide.
“The Labour Party has won this election,” Sunak said after the results in his Yorkshire constituency of Richmond and Northallerton were announced. “I have called Starmer to congratulate him.”
“I take responsibility for the loss,” he added, apologizing to defeated Conservative candidates.
After having declared the election earlier than expected and presided over a campaign beset by scandals, PR failures and allegations of insider betting, Sunak may have led the Conservatives to their worst defeat ever, according to exit polls.
‘The Conservative Party has let you down’: Former home secretary apologizes to voters
Ex-Home Secretary Suella Braverman, a far-right, anti-immigration member of the Conservative Party who clashed with Sunak, has apologized to her constituency on behalf of her party.
“I’m sorry that my party didn’t listen to you,” she said after she retained her Fareham seat. “The Conservative Party has let you down.”
“We did not keep our promises,” she continued. “We acted like we were entitled to your vote.”
Sunak dismissed Braverman as home secretary in November after she accused the London Metropolitan Police of bias in the policing of protests. Braverman has since said she regrets having backed Sunak for prime minister.
Conservative lawmaker Iain Duncan Smith also held on to his Chingford and Woodford Green seat but admitted his party had “rather lost touch with the public.”
“We took constituents for granted,” he said.
Senior Conservatives lose seats as party's vote share plummets
The incumbent Conservative Party has lost a number of high-profile MPs with Labour on course for a resounding victory.
According to the BBC, 16 senior Conservatives had lost their seats.
Defense Secretary Grant Shapps is the most senior member of Sunak’s Cabinet to lose his seat so far, having also served as home secretary, transport minister and chairman of the Conservative Party.
“What is crystal clear to me tonight is not so much that Labour won this election, but rather the Conservatives have lost it,” Shapps said in his concession speech.
Penny Mordaunt, the leader of the U.K.'s House of Commons, who once challenged Sunak for leadership of the party, has lost her seat to Labour. Education Secretary Gillian Keegan also lost her seat after the Liberal Democrats won in the market town of Chichester on England’s south coast.
Labour suffered a surprise defeat to a member of its shadow cabinet as shadow paymaster general Jonathan Ashworth was beaten by an independent candidate in Leicester South. A third of the population in Leicester South are Muslim, and the Labour Party has come under fire for its support for Israel in the war on Gaza.
An ebullient Starmer promises change
Flanked by rival candidates, including one dressed as Elmo, a smiling Starmer promised change after he won his central London seat of Holborn and St Pancras.
“Tonight, people here and around the country have spoken, and they’re ready for change,” he said. “You have voted; it is now time for us to deliver.”
“Change begins in this community with the people who came together to make life better.”
Starmer has held the seat since 2015, but his vote share dropped by 17% after a surge in support for independent, pro-Gaza candidate Andrew Feinstein.
Among the more than 4,500 candidates standing for election to Parliament’s 650 seats are those from fringe parties, single-issue campaigners and, in a peculiarly British tradition, those who are simply making fun of the whole thing.
Starmer’s 11 opponents included Nick the Incredible Flying Brick from the Monster Raving Loony Party, as well as perennial candidate Bobby Smith, who campaigns as the Elmo character from “Sesame Street.” They won 162 and 19 votes, respectively, to Starmer’s 18,884.
Britain by the numbers over the last 14 years
A lot has changed since Conservatives came into power in 2010. Here is Britain by the numbers in that time.
Some of the parameters, like growth in gross domestic product, have been influenced by the Covid-19 pandemic, arguably beyond the control of any government, but there are still visible trends since 2010.
GDP growth rebounded from minus 4.6% in 2009 to 2.2% when the Tories came to power in 2010, according to World Bank data. It varied between 1% and 3% in the following years until the pandemic tanked it to minus 10.4% in 2020. It bounced back to 8.7% the next year but has been on the decline since then, with a gain of only 0.1% last year.
Waiting lists for hospital treatments under the beloved but cash-strapped National Health Service have grown sharply since 2010, according to the London-based Institute for Fiscal Studies. In England, the elective waiting list doubled from 2.3 million in January 2010 to 4.6 million just before the pandemic in December 2019, peaking at 7.8 million in September 2023.
Homelessness has also increased 120% since 2010, according to government figures, peaking in 2017.
Trump ally Nigel Farage wins seat from Conservatives
Farage, a key architect of Brexit and ally of Trump, handily won a seat in the seaside town of Clacton in his eighth attempt at becoming a MP.
"My plan is to build a mass national movement," Farage said in his acceptance speech.
While Farage has failed to win before, he has had a profound impact on U.K. politics as the former leader of the United Kingdom Independence Party and as a member of the European Parliament. He is considered partly responsible for dragging the Conservative Party to the right, and he played a key role in driving the U.K.'s exit from the European Union.
His decision to run as an MP during this election led to huge support for his Reform UK party, taking voters away from both Labour and the Conservatives. According to exit polls, Reform UK is projected to win 13 seats. In a video posted on X, Farage said “the revolt against the establishment” was underway.
Reform UK won its first seat of the night as Lee Anderson took the Ashfield constituency from the Conservatives.
Anderson, a former Conservative MP, called Ashfield the “capital of common sense” as he thanked voters and campaigners.
Ousted former Labour leader defeats party's candidate to retain seat
Ex-Labour leader and committed socialist Jeremy Corbyn has retained his seat in North London after he ran as an independent against Labour candidate Praful Nargund.
Corbyn, 74, has represented Islington North since 1983, and as leader he galvanized many on the left, helping to attract thousands of new party members. But after two electoral losses and a row over antisemitism during his time as party leader, he was banned from running as a candidate and later expelled.
Starmer has been accused of purging the left of the party as he consolidates control and tries to appeal to centrist voters.