British general election: landslide victory for Labour

The United Kingdom is shifting to the center-left: Labor won a landslide victory in Thursday’s general election, ending 14 years of Conservative rule and opening the doors of Downing Street to its leader, Keir Starmer.

• Read more: UK election: PM ran ‘absolutely awful’ campaign

Results are expected overnight, but opinion polls released as polls close leave little doubt about the outcome of the poll, which will open a new chapter in the country’s political history.

According to these British television projections, Labor will win 410 of the 650 seats in the House of Commons.

If this falls short of Tony Blair’s surge in 1997 (418), he is well ahead of outgoing Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s Conservative Party, which was rejected by voters with 131 elected representatives. This is a far cry from the 365 Tory MPs elected five years ago and the party’s worst result since the turn of the 20th century.

The Liberal Democrats (Centres) will be strengthened with 61 representatives, but the surprise of the election comes mainly from the anti-immigration and anti-establishment UK Reform Party: it will win 13 seats, a far more spectacular entry than expected to form. The image of a proper tough Nigel Farage.

With the far-right likely to come to power in France and Donald Trump poised to return to the White House, Britain has overwhelmingly elected a moderate center-left leader.

Keir Starmer, a 61-year-old former human rights lawyer, is due to be tasked by Charles III with forming a new government on Friday.

“Thank you to everyone who campaigned for Labor at these elections, to everyone who voted for us and to everyone who believed in our new Labor Party,” Keir Starmer replied calmly at X.

Nine years into politics and four years as Labor leader, he will face a considerable yearning for change.

As polls predicted throughout the campaign, the Conservatives are being punished after 14 tumultuous years that left Britons with a sense of collapse.

Brexit has torn the country apart and failed to deliver on the promises of its supporters. Rising prices over the past two years have pushed families into poverty, with more families than ever relying on food banks for food.

You can sometimes wait months for medical appointments with the public NHS service. There is a danger that the prisons will run out of space in the coming days.

Poker moves

In a climate of perpetual fraternal battles with the majority, political scandals under Boris Johnson and the budget blunders of Lis Truss, who has only been in power for 49 days, have angered voters.

In 20 months in Downing Street, his successor Rishi Sunak never managed to raise the bar in public opinion. He tried one last gamble by calling these elections in July rather than waiting for the fall as many had thought, but his campaign was a disaster.

The 44-year-old former investment banker and finance minister appeared to lack political acumen, playing down his presence at the 80th anniversary celebrations of the Normandy landings and delaying responding to suspicions of rigged betting in his camp. of elections.

Opposite, Keir Starmer contrasts his ordinary looks – mother a nurse and father an instrument maker – with his multimillionaire opponent.

Not very charismatic, but determined, he promised to transform the country as he had straightened out Labour, re-centred it economically and fought anti-Semitism: methodically, without fanfare or coyness.