An exit poll yesterday indicated that Keir Starmer will be Britain’s next Prime Minister. His Labour Party is set to win a massive majority in a parliamentary election, while Rishi Sunak’s Conservatives are forecast to suffer historic losses.
The poll showed Labour would win 410 seats in the 650-seat parliament, ending 14 years of Conservative-led government.
Sunak’s party were forecast only to take 131 seats, down from 346 when parliament was dissolved, as voters punished the Conservatives for a cost-of-living crisis and years of instability and in-fighting, which has seen five different prime ministers since 2016.
The centrist Liberal Democrats were predicted to capture 61 seats while Brexit campaigner Nigel Farage’s right-wing populist Reform UK was forecast to win 13.
In the last six national elections, only one exit poll has predicted the outcome wrong – in 2015, when the poll predicted a hung parliament when, in fact, the Conservatives won a majority.
Report says official results will follow over the next few hours.
Sunak stunned Westminster and many in his party by calling the election earlier than he needed to in May, with the Conservatives trailing Labour by some 20 points in opinion polls.
He had hoped that the gap would narrow as had traditionally been the case in British elections, but the deficit has failed to budge in a fairly disastrous campaign.
It started badly, with him getting drenched by rain outside Downing Street as he announced the vote before aides and Conservative candidates became involved in a gambling scandal over suspicious bets on the election date.
Sunak’s early departure from D-Day commemorative events in France to do a TV interview angered veterans, and even those within his party said it raised questions about his political acumen.
If the exit poll proves right, it represents an incredible turnaround for Starmer and Labour. Critics and supporters said the party was facing an existential crisis just three years ago when it lost a parliamentary seat on a 16% swing to the Conservatives, an almost unique win for a governing party.
While polls have suggested that Labour leader Starmer is not highly regarded, his simple message that it was time for change appears to have resonated with voters.
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