As widely predicted, the centre-left Labour Party has won a landslide victory in the UK elections, ousting the Conservative Party ("the Tories") which suffered what will likely be its worst defeat in its history.
People living in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland headed to the polls on Thursday to vote in the UK's general election. Counting is coming to an end and many results have already been released, the results only enlarging the victory that exit polls late on Thursday evening indicated for Labour. The latest poll shows 410 seats for Labour (of the 640 seats in the House of Commons).
The 326th seat needed for a parliamentary majority was claimed by the Labour Party shortly before 06:00 on Friday morning (Belgian time). This means the Labour leader Keir Starmer is set to become the new British Prime Minister – the first for Labour since Gordon Brown, fourteen years ago.
Change begins. Watch my speech here. https://t.co/npCLojfGZk
— Keir Starmer (@Keir_Starmer) July 5, 2024
"Change begins now," Starmer said in a victory speech. "We said we would end the chaos, and we will, we said we would turn the page, and we have. Today, we start the next chapter, begin the work of change, the mission of national renewal and start to rebuild our country."
The outgoing leader of the country, the Tory's Rishi Sunak, has already conceded defeat. His party has so far lost 249 seats and won 120, a two-thirds reduction on their 2019 result. However, the full election result is not expected until later on Friday morning. The party has been languishing behind Labour in opinion polling since as far back as 2022.
Aside from the predicted landslide for labour, a notable win was Nigel Farage, the leader of the far-right Reform UK party, who won a Parliamentary seat after seven failed election attempts. His party is expected to secure four seats in total.
Meanwhile Jeremy Corbyn, the former Labour leader who was subsequently expelled from the party and stood against Labour as an independent, held onto his Islington North seat in London, where he has been an MP sine 1983.
