Rishi Sunak concedes defeat as Labour headed for landslide UK election win

LONDON: Keir Starmer will be Britain’s next prime minister with his Labour Party set to win a huge parliamentary majority in the country’s general election, an exit poll on Thursday indicated, 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 was forecast to only take 131 seats, down from 346 when parliament was dissolved, as voters punish 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.

“It is exactly what Keir Starmer wanted. He wanted a proper mandate to serve the people, he said – a mission-led government – and it seems that the verdict of the British people is that: yes, they are very much minded to have a change,” AFP reported.

“If this exit poll is correct, then this is a historic defeat for the Conservative Party, one of the most resilient forces that we have seen in British political history,” Keiran Pedley, research director at Ipsos, which carried out the exit poll, told Reuters.

If the exit poll proves right, it represents an incredible turnaround for Starmer and Labour, which critics and supporters said 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.

Starmer has promised change

“Tonight, people here and around the country have spoken and they’re ready for change, to end the politics of performance, a return to politics as public service,” Starmer said after winning his seat in London.

“The change begins right here … You have voted. It is now time for us to deliver.” Sunak conceded defeat and said he had called Starmer to congratulate him on his victory.

“Today power will change hands in a peaceful and orderly manner, with goodwill on all sides,” he said after regaining his seat. “There is much to learn and reflect on and I take responsibility for the loss to the many good hardworking Conservative candidates … I am sorry.”

While polls have suggested that there is no great enthusiasm for Labour leader Starmer, his simple message that it was time for change appears to have resonated with voters.

Unlike in France where Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Rally party made historic gains in an election last Sunday, the disenchanted British public appears to have instead moved to the centre-left.