LONDON — The Conservatives, the world’s most successful political party, were dramatically ousted from power on Thursday after 14 years of chaotic and divisive rule.
The exit poll, released at 10pm local time (5pm Eastern Daylight Time), showed Labour had secured a landslide victory, ending an era of Conservative dominance in Britain that stretches back to 2010; the year the iPad and Instagram were launched and Lady Gaga wore that meat dress to the MTV Music Awards.
In that time, the Conservatives have gone through five leaders, each of whom dragged the party further down the polls. It was Rishi Sunak who was finally defeated by a huge margin after running the worst election campaign in living memory. “A devastating night for the Conservatives,” said former leadership candidate Andrea Leadsom.
Keir Starmer arrives to vote on election morning.
Jakub Porzycki/Getty
The campaign got off to a soggy start when the prime minister shocked the country – first by announcing a snap general election – and second by doing so outside Number 10 in torrential rain that left his expensive, tailored suit soaked through. His words were also drowned out by an old Labour election anthem being played in Downing Street by an enterprising protester.
Incredibly, the campaign went downhill from there. Sunak made the mistake of leaving early a D-Day memorial event in France, where President Joe Biden and President Emmanuel Macron stood shoulder to shoulder to salute the last major anniversary likely to be attended by survivors of the Second World War. Voters were shocked, despite Sunak’s apologies, and Nigel Farage subsequently managed to appeal to traditionalists and right-wing voters with his insurgent, MAGA-inspired Reform party. Exit polls suggested a major surge for Farage’s party, which could secure them 13 seats in parliament.
The poll predicted that Labour would win an incredible 410 seats (just eight fewer than Tony Blair won in 1997) and just 131 for the Conservatives, which would be the lowest number in the party’s nearly 200-year history. Since its founding in 1836, the Tories have become the most successful party in any competitive multi-party state in the world.
As recriminations began within the Conservative Party, veteran lawmaker Michael Fabricant said: “Never in the history of a general election have so many been let down by so few.”
Rishi Sunak voted on Thursday morning in the hope of avoiding losing his own seat.
OLI SCARF
The new British prime minister will be Sir Keir Starmer, the former head of the public prosecution service. Starmer has adopted a cautious approach, labelled the “Ming vase” strategy, as he has tried to steer his delicately assembled coalition of voters across the finish line.
After the party underperformed in the polls of 2017, 2010 and, famously, in 1992, when everyone expected them to return to power, Starmer became the fourth Labour leader to take his party from opposition to power in the century since its founding.
Labour’s Bridget Phillipson was the first lawmaker to be formally elected on the night and wasted no time in declaring victory for her party across the country. “After 14 years, the British people chose change, they chose the Labour Party and they chose the leadership of Keir Starmer,” she said. “Hope and unity, not decline and division.”
