Sunak thanks voters for their support after the Conservative Party’s defeat, which would have lost 241 seats
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The Labour Party led by Keir Starmer has achieved a crushing victory in the parliamentary elections held this Thursday in the United Kingdom, according to exit polls that project that it will obtain 410 seats, although it would not be able to surpass the Labour record of 418 deputies established in 1997 by Tony Blair.
The poll – distributed at the close of polls at 10pm (local time) by the BBC, ITV and Sky News – confirms the defeat of Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s Conservative Party, which had been predicted since the last polls. The Tories would be left with 131 seats, 241 fewer than in the current legislature.
“To everyone who campaigned for Labour in this election, to everyone who voted for us and put their trust in our renewed Labour Party: thank you,” Starmer said on social media.
Meanwhile, the deputy leader of the UK Labour Party, Angela Rayner, has urged caution in statements to the British broadcaster BBC. “The figures are encouraging, but the exit poll is a poll, so we don’t have any results yet,” she added.
If the poll released by Ipsos – carried out in more than 130 polling stations – is correct, the Labour Party would have gained 209 seats compared to the last election, while the Conservatives would have suffered their worst fall in recent times.
According to The Guardian, if the Conservatives only win 131 seats, it would be their worst result since the 1830s under former Prime Minister Robert Peel of the now defunct Whig Party.
“To the hundreds of Conservative candidates, thousands of volunteers and millions of voters: Thank you for your hard work, thank you for your support and thank you for your vote,” Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said on social media.
The harsh but predictable defeat of the Conservative Party, if confirmed during the night, when the trickle of votes begins to trickle down constituency by constituency, would put an end to 14 years of Conservative governments that have been burdened, among other things, by the collateral effects of Brexit.
The third force would be the Liberal Democrats, with Ed Davey at the helm, which would have won 61 seats, 53 more than in the last election. In fourth place would be the Scottish National Party (SNP) of John Swinney, which would lose 38 seats, remaining with 10 deputies. Finally, the Welsh independence party Plaid Cymru would gain 4, while the Greens would remain with 2.
Davey said on social media that the Liberal Democrats “are on course to achieve the best results in a century.” “I am humbled by the millions of people who backed us to drive the Tories out of power and deliver the change our country needs,” he added.
Nigel Farage’s Reform Party would win 13 seats, achieving representation for the first time. It did not win any seats in the 2019 election, although MP Lee Anderson, a former senior Conservative Party member, announced in March that he was moving to the Brexit Party’s successor.
The poll’s forecast for Reforma is positive, since the last polls before this day of voting in the United Kingdom projected that it would win only 3 seats. “We are enormously grateful for your support,” the populist party said on social media.
Citizens of the United Kingdom, Ireland and Commonwealth countries went to the polls on Thursday in an election day that started at 7:00 (local time) to elect 650 deputies divided according to the population of the different territories: 543 in England, 57 in Scotland, 32 in Wales and 18 in Northern Ireland.
The system does not require an absolute majority and does not establish second rounds, which makes voting easier. The data from the latest poll published on Thursday by the British company YouGov predicted a historic victory for Labour with 431 seats, 229 more than in the last election, slightly higher than the figures released by Ipsos at the exit polls.
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