Labour is on the verge of a clear victory, according to forecasts

After fourteen years of conservative government, Great Britain is facing a change of power. According to BBC forecasts based on voter surveys, Keir Starmer’s Labour Party is likely to win 410 seats in the 650-member House of Commons. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s Conservative Party, on the other hand, will be punished: according to forecasts, it will only win 131 seats, which would be the worst result for the Tory Party since its founding. In the last election in December 2019, the Conservatives won 365 seats, while Labour won 203 seats.

According to the forecast, the Liberal Democrats will win 61 seats and will probably have taken numerous seats from the Conservatives, especially in the south and west of England. The Reform UK group of Brexit campaigner Nigel Farage will win 13 seats. This means that for the first time a nationalist party to the right of the Conservatives will enter the House of Commons with substantial strength. Farage himself is also likely to have won the election, although the final results from the 650 constituencies will not be available until later tonight.

According to forecasts, the Scottish National Party (SNP) is likely to suffer heavy losses in Scotland. The SNP is expected to win 10 seats, after winning 48 seats in 2019. The forecasts suggest that the SNP’s ten-year dominance in Scotland may have come to an end. However, the forecasts for Scotland should be viewed with greater caution than those for England.

Labour just short of record result

According to forecasts, Labour could govern with a huge parliamentary majority of around 170 seats. Polls had already pointed to a landslide victory for the Labour Party before the election. When the Social Democrats came to power in 1997 under Tony Blair, they achieved a brilliant result with a majority of 179 seats. Now Labour could fall just short of this record result.

In 1945, after the end of the Second World War, Labour leader Clement Attlee ousted Winston Churchill from power with a majority of 145 seats. In 1924, the Conservatives under Stanley Baldwin won the largest parliamentary majority in British history with a lead of 209 seats. Margaret Thatcher was elected Prime Minister in 1983 with a Conservative majority of 144 seats. Boris Johnson had won a comfortable majority of 80 seats five years earlier.

Starmer at the gates of power

There is no longer any doubt that Labour leader Keir Starmer will become the new British Prime Minister on Friday. King Charles III is expected to receive him in an audience this morning and formally commission him to form a government that would begin work immediately. In British history, only six Labour politicians have served as Prime Minister.

The impending change of power after fourteen years of conservative government is a turning point. However, the Labour Party acted with caution during the election campaign and did not seek a mandate for a radical change in policy. Starmer wants to bury the plan to deport asylum seekers to Rwanda, reduce the waiting lists in the health care system and reform the bureaucratic planning system.

Great Britain is struggling with a number of problems that contributed to the disastrous election result for the Conservatives. Brexit has so far been anything but a growth driver, debt and taxes are higher than they have been for decades, the infrastructure is outdated, and many municipalities are facing bankruptcy. Given the poor budget situation, however, the future Labour government’s financial scope for investment is also very limited.