Labour’s resounding election victory ended 14 years of Conservative government. But a fragmented vote and low turnout pointed to a deeply unhappy Britain.
Here’s the latest in Britain’s election.
Prime Minister Keir Starmer took office in Britain on Friday and promised a “national renewal” after his center-left Labour Party won a landslide election victory that decisively swept the Conservatives out of power but pointed to a dissatisfied and fragmented nation.
While Labour’s more than 410 seats in Parliament ensured the party a robust majority, the breakdown of votes, and the lowest turnout in years, indicated the challenges ahead for Mr. Starmer. The BBC estimated that Labour had garnered only 35 percent of the votes nationwide, which John Curtice, a prominent polling expert, said would be “the lowest share of the vote won by any single-party majority government.”
Just 60 percent of voters were forecast to have participated, close to a record low and a possible sign that some voters had checked out after years of political dysfunction. Smaller parties and independent candidates saw their support surge, and Reform U.K., the new anti-immigration party led by the Trump ally Nigel Farage, became Britain’s third biggest party by vote share, winning 14 percent of the vote.
After meeting with King Charles III at Buckingham Palace, Mr. Starmer seemed to acknowledge the pressure on Labour to act fast, saying in a speech outside No. 10 Downing Street: “Our work is urgent and we begin it today.” He added that Britons had “voted decisively for change” and called on the country “to move forward together.”
Hours earlier, the departing prime minister, Rishi Sunak, gave brief, conciliatory remarks in Downing Street, congratulating Mr. Starmer, accepting responsibility for his party’s resounding defeat and saying to voters that he had “heard your anger.” With almost all 650 races declared, the Conservatives were on course for fewer than 130 seats, the worst defeat for the party in its nearly 200-year history.
Here’s what else to know:
- Labour’s makeover: For Mr. Starmer, a low-key lawyer who only entered Parliament in 2015, it was a remarkable vindication of his four-year project to pull the Labour Party away from the left-wing policies of his predecessor, Jeremy Corbyn, and rebrand it as a plausible alternative to the increasingly erratic rule of the Conservatives.
- Sunak’s future: Mr. Sunak said he would resign as party leader, “not immediately” but once arrangements to choose his successor were in place. He offered a robust case for his achievements in less than two years in office: cutting inflation, resolving a trade dispute with the European Union and steadying Britain’s economy.
- Right-wing ferment: Reform U.K.’s strong showing was a victory for Mr. Farage, the party’s leader and a veteran political disrupter who won a seat after failing in seven previous bids to get into Parliament. From his new perch, Mr. Farage could try to poach the remnants of the debilitated Conservatives.
- Other parties: Frustration with the two main parties was apparent in the strong showing by others. The centrist Liberal Democrats earned 71 seats, their best result in a century. And Reform U.K. was not the only smaller party to do well: the Green Party and a number of pro-Palestinian independent candidates won formerly safe Labour seats.