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London
CNN
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The tectonic plates of British politics have shifted after Britons voted overwhelmingly to end 14 years of Conservative rule and secured a landslide victory for the Labour Party.
Labour’s victory is bigger than the party could have imagined until very recently. At the last general election in 2019, it suffered its worst defeat in more than 80 years and looked destined for a long period in the political wilderness.
But the party has rebuilt itself under the leadership of Keir Starmer, who will now become the UK’s next prime minister.
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Under Britain’s majority voting system, people in 650 constituencies across the nations of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland voted to select their member of parliament (MP) to represent the area. Votes were counted overnight and final votes will be tallied by Friday.
A party needs 326 seats to officially win, a milestone Labor reached around 5 a.m. local time on Friday, and the new government will have a landslide majority in the next parliamentary term.
Due to its electoral system, Britain can see large discrepancies between the share of seats won by a party and its share of the popular vote.
If support for one party – or antipathy for another – is distributed fairly evenly across the country, it will not be necessary to win a large share of the popular vote to gain a large majority of seats in parliament.
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The results represent one of the biggest swings in British political history and a stunning defeat for the Conservative Party after 14 years in government, bringing a brutal end to Rishi Sunak’s premiership.
Britain’s traditional third party, the Liberal Democrats, also saw a huge surge, rising from just 11 seats won in the 2019 general election to more than 60.
Nigel Farage’s right-wing populist Reform UK party won its first seats and came second in many others, splitting the right-wing vote and contributing to the Conservatives’ losses.
Meanwhile, in Scotland, the Scottish National Party (SNP) has lost several MPs, with its seat count likely to fall to single digits from 48 in 2019.
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