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Posted by msmash from the breaking-news dept.
Britain’s Labour Party was projected on Thursday evening to win a landslide election victory, sweeping the Conservative Party out of power after 14 years, in a thundering anti-incumbent revolt that heralded a new era in British politics.
British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak accepted defeat Friday, and said he had called Keir Starmer, the Labour leader, to congratulate him.
The New York Times: Partial results, and an exit poll conducted for the BBC and two other broadcasters, indicated that Labour was on course to win around 405 of the 650 seats in the British House of Commons, versus 154 for the Conservatives. If the projections are confirmed, it would be the worst defeat for the Conservatives in the nearly 200-year history of the party, one that would raise questions about its future — and even its very viability. Reform U.K., an insurgent, anti-immigration party, was projected to win 4 seats but a significant share of the vote, a robust performance that came at the expense of the Conservatives.
The exit poll, which accurately predicted the winner of the last five British general elections, confirmed the electorate was thoroughly fed up with the Conservatives after a turbulent era that spanned austerity, Brexit, the Covid pandemic, the serial scandals of Prime Minister Boris Johnson and the ill-fated tax-cutting proposals of his successor, Liz Truss. While a Labour victory had long been predicted — it held a double-digit polling lead over the Conservatives for more than 18 months — the magnitude of the Tory defeat will reverberate through Britain for months, if not years.
Further reading: Financial Times; BBC, and The Guardian.
“Spock, did you see the looks on their faces?” “Yes, Captain, a sort of vacant contentment.”
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