Labour triumphs in Britain. The Starmer era begins

Keir Starmer,leader of the Labour Party, will be the next British Prime Minister after the clear and overwhelming victory in the elections. Rishi Sunak,outgoing Prime Minister and leader of the Conservative Party, has publicly admitted defeat, saying he has already congratulated his rival. The count is still ongoing with just under 130 seats to be assigned. According to the latest BBC projections, the Conservatives could end up with just 144 MPs, the lowest number in their entire political history. Labour, on the other hand, returns to power after 14 years and with an overwhelming majority. In fact, the threshold of 326 seats, necessary to obtain a majority in the House of Commons, has already been exceeded.

Starmer has promised to bring a “national renewal” to Britain. “We did it,” he declared triumphantly in the early hours of the morning, as his party secured an absolute majority in the new parliament. “Our task is nothing less than to renew the ideas that hold our country together, a national renewal.”

The massive victory crowns the work of a dour leader often seen as lacking in charisma. Since taking over Labour in 2020, he has sought to reshape the party, refocusing it on the economy and pushing away the left wing. “Election victories don’t fall from the sky. They are won the hard way, the hard way, and this could only be won by a transformed Labour,” he insisted. “Change starts now,” Starmer promised, while Labour’s victory owed much to the Tories’ pushback after a series of crises and a disastrous election campaign.

“Now we can look forward again,” he insisted, assuring that he would “put politics back at the service of the people,” one of the beliefs of his campaign. But he also warned that “hard work” awaits his future government, “patient work, determined work,” which will begin “immediately.”

“I can’t promise you it will be easy. You can’t change a country by pressing a button,” at a time when the country is suffering from a crisis in public services and budget constraints. “Today we begin a new chapter, we begin this effort of change, this mission of national renewal, and we begin to rebuild our country,” he concluded.

Sunak said he would make a full statement on the defeat when he returned to London later in the day. He did not say whether he intended to remain in the party leadership. Tory leaders who have already lost their seats include senior members of the outgoing government, including Commons leader Penny Mordaunt, Justice Secretary Alex Chalk, Defence Secretary Grant Shapps, Education Secretary Gillian Keegan, and party leader Simon Hart. After a close contest, Jeremy Hunt, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, narrowly retained his seat.

It wasn’t a particularly good night for John Swinney, leader of the SNP (independence party) and Scottish First Minister, who had to admit that his party had “a bad election”. In the previous round of voting, the SNP had won 48 seats, but the BBC predicts that by the end of the night it will have fewer than ten. The centrist Liberal Democrats, on the other hand, can be satisfied since they are about to obtain their best electoral result in a century. In the last election they won 11 seats, now the projections assign 58.

Nigel Farage, leader di Reform UK, has said his party is making progress towards replacing the Tories as the main opposition party. Farage won Clacton and his party has won at least three more seats. The BBC’s latest projections suggest the party will win no more than that. Early exit polls had predicted a double-digit number which would have been much more impactful. However, the data still shows Reform UK coming second in many seats behind Labour and ahead of the Conservatives. Carla Denyer, co-leader of the Greens, beat Labour to win Bristol Central. The BBC’s projections suggest the environmental party is set to win two seats. Plaid Cymru, on the other hand, is on course to win four seats. A seat in Parliament will be reserved for the sole independent winner, the former Labour leader, Jeremy Corbin.

Former PM Liz Truss loses seat

Former British Prime Minister Liz Truss, who spent 49 days in Downing Street nearly two years ago before resigning after sparking panic in financial markets, has lost her Labour MP seat.
Truss, who triggered a market crisis and sent sterling tumbling with her unfunded budget, was defeated in the general election by Labour, who beat her by 630 votes.

In another boost for centrists, the smaller opposition Liberal Democrats would win 61 seats, while Nigel Farage’s anti-immigration Reform UK party could win 13. Ballot counting was underway across the country and official results are expected between Thursday and Friday with the Labour leader Keir Starmer in the running to replace Rishi Sunak as Prime Minister. According to the British electoral system “first-past-the-post”a party needs 326 seats to win a majority in Parliament. After a sleepless night of counting and declarations, the winner is expected to meet King Charles III, who will ask the leader of the largest party to form a government.

Confirmation of the result would cap a remarkable rise to power for Starmer, 61, who was first elected as a member of Parliament in 2015. The former human rights lawyer and chief prosecutor was elected Labour leader in early 2020, succeeding the veteran leftist Jeremy Corbynwho lost by a landslide against Boris Johnson in 2019. Since then, he has brought the party back to the center, making it more electable and eliminating the ideological struggles and anti-Semitism that had cost him support.

Over the past two years, polls have given Labour a steady 20-point lead over the Conservatives, which a lacklustre election campaign has failed to change. That has lent an air of inevitability to a Labour victory and high expectations that the party can deliver on its promise to turn the country around for the better. Starmer, the son of a factory worker and a nurse, has promised “a decade of national renewal”. But his to-do list is huge: economic growth is anaemic, public services are overstretched and underfunded after nearly a decade and a half of cuts, and families are under severe financial pressure. The Labour leader has also promised a return to political integrity, after a chaotic period of five Tory prime ministers, including three in four months. His first days in office will be busy: next week he will represent Britain at the Nato conference in Washington, then host European leaders later this month at a summit in southern England.