It comes with the Conservatives, who call themselves the natural party of government, facing a collapse unparalleled in their history. Some big Tory names have already lost their seats including Defence Secretary Grant Shapps. The exit poll puts them on course to win 131 seats, as Nigel Farage’s populist Reform UK Party took chunks out of the Tory support.
Keir Starmer’s Labour Party won the UK general election and is on course for a huge parliamentary majority with votes still being counted, a result that upends British politics after Rishi Sunak’s Conservatives imploded.
Labour passed the magic number of 326 seats for a House of Commons majority just before 5 am on Friday, confirming a change of government that was predicted for months but is still a remarkable turnaround for Starmer’s party in a single electoral cycle. Based on the official exit poll, Labour is on course to win 410 of the 650 seats, the most since Tony Blair’s 1997 landslide victory.
