UK Labour Party defeats Rishi Sunak’s Conservatives

🔴 Labour have officially won
🔴 Sunak has conceded defeat
🔴 Senior Tories defeated including Rees-Mogg
🔴 Farage elected as an MP for first time
🔴 Corbyn re-elected as MP

LONDON | BBC and Xinhua | Rishi Sunak has said he accepts responsibility for the Conservative Party’s historic general election defeat.

Sir Keir Starmer has led the Labour Party to a landslide victory and will take over from Mr Sunak as the UK’s prime minister.

Sunak told supporters: “The British people have delivered a sobering verdict tonight, there is much to learn… and I take responsibility for the loss.”

Speaking in central London, Sir Keir said “change begins now”, adding “it feels good, I have to be honest”.

With more than 500 out of 650 seats declared, Labour is projected to form the next government, with a majority of 166.

The Tories are set for the worst result in their history, with just 136 MPs.

Reform UK leader Nigel Farage has won a seat in Parliament at his eighth attempt, in Clacton, promising “this is just the first step of something that is going to stun all of you”.

Reform has four MPs so far – including chairman Richard Tice and former Tory Lee Anderson – and is finishing second in many parts of the country, taking large amounts of votes from the Conservatives.

The Scottish National Party is now forecast to be reduced to just eight MPs, as Labour regains dominance in Scotland.

The projected landslide victory for Labour is in sync with the sustained double-digit lead it maintained over the Tories in all opinion polls in the months leading up to the voting day.

Disenchanted voters in the UK have grown increasingly impatient with the ruling party as it struggled to address the concerns of the ordinary people. Their trust in the Conservative-led government has diminished amid a host of scandals. Voters also doubted the stability and consistency of Downing Street’s leadership during the political chaos in the summer of 2022, which saw the UK install three different prime ministers in two months.

“I’m interested in more stability in government. We’ve had too much infighting within parties, too much turnover. And I think that creates a lot of stopping and starting of progress,” London resident Nicole told Xinhua outside a polling station.

“I think that this will be a big step forward just to have a much more functional, consistent government. It’s more like wanting competency, wanting things to work better, wanting concentration from our government in terms of public services and progress,” she said.

Starmer’s Labour Party has campaigned around the theme of “Change,” promising to rebuild Britain and make it serve the interests of working people. Among Labour’s key pledges are to kickstart economic growth, implement tough spending rules, cut NHS waiting times, recruit thousands more teachers, return law and order to British streets, and enhance border security to contain illegal immigration.

“The challenges are going to be absolutely enormous (for Labour),” Professor Stuart Wilks-Heeg, political expert at the University of Liverpool, told Xinhua. “It’s really difficult to see how they can progress fast on any of these things now.”

The “honeymoon period” that voters have given to Labour will be “very, very short,” and it is critical for Starmer to use whatever goodwill he’s got to try and fix problems in this period, he added. ■