Gordon Brown was the last Labour leader to inhabit Downing Street 10, the residence and office of the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. That was in May 2010, and more than 14 years of Conservative governments have passed in one of the world’s major powers. But now they are ready for the return after a crushing victory in the national elections.
According to the exit polls, which are usually significant and highly credible in Great Britain as in other European countries, the Labour Party will obtain 410 Members of Parliament in the next House of Commons, allowing them to appoint Keir Starmer, 61, as the new Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.
The exit polls were delivered as soon as the last polling stations closed at 10:00 PM local time, by media outlets like Sky News and BBC, and they show a landslide victory for the center-left party.
Before dawn, British time, Labour Party surpassed the 326 MP needed to make the victory official.
Also in the early hours of this Friday, first minister Rishi Sunak conceded: “The Labour Party has won this general election and I have called Keir Starmer to congratulate him.”
How much is the Labour Party growing in the United Kingdom?
The Labour Party would increase from 212 elected MP in 2019 to 410 today, while the Conservative Party would lose an impressive number of 234 parliamentarians.
The Liberal Democrats would increase from 11 to 61, while the far-right Reform UK party of Nigel Farage will have 13 MP that it did not have before.
These elections also mark a very tough defeat for the Scottish National Party, which had hoped for good results to call for a new independence referendum, but they went from having 43 MP to just 10.
The crisis of the Conservative Party
These results confirm the crisis of the Conservatives, who have been governing the United Kingdom since 2010.
But after David Cameron's departure in 2016 following the Brexit defeat, they have had to navigate turbulent waters, especially since Boris Johnson left power in September 2022. He was replaced by Liz Truss, who lasted only 50 days until Rishi Sunak was appointed.
The current Prime Minister was supposed to call for national elections in January of this year, but postponed the decision until May, perhaps hoping that certain migration policies would reverse his party’s declining popularity. He failed to do so, and the conservatives will be in opposition for the first time in 14 years.