Keir Starmer will become the next Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, and his Labour Party is expected to win a majority.
London:
Keir Starmer will become Britain’s next prime minister and his Labour party is expected to win a landslide majority in parliamentary elections, while Rishi Sunak’s Conservative party is predicted to suffer a historic defeat, according to exit polls on Thursday.
Opinion polls had predicted Labour would win 410 of the 650-seat Parliament, ending 14 years of Conservative-led government.
Sunak’s party had been expected to fall to 131 seats from 346 at the time Parliament was dissolved due to rising living costs and voter criticism of years of instability and internal infighting that have seen five prime ministers since 2016.
In the last six national elections, exit polls have only been wrong once: in 2015, when polls predicted a hanging parliament but the Conservatives actually won a majority. Official results are due to be announced in the next few hours.
Sunak surprised many in Westminster and his party by calling a general election earlier than necessary in May, when the Conservatives were about 20 points behind Labour in the opinion polls.
There was hope that the margin of votes would narrow, as is traditional in UK elections, but in a fairly disastrous campaign the margin of votes did not narrow.
The Prime Minister got off to a terrible start, getting soaked in the rain outside Downing Street as he announced the result, and then his aides and Conservative candidates were embroiled in a gambling scandal over questionable bets made on election day.
Sunak’s decision to leave an event marking the Normandy landings in France early to give a television interview has angered veterans and raised questions about his political skills, even within his own party.
Opinion polls show Labour leader Starmer does not enjoy high support, but his simple message that it is time for change appears to have resonated with voters.
Unlike France, where Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Rally party made historic gains in last Sunday’s general election, disillusioned Britons appear to have shifted to the centre-left.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)