Labour landslide, historic Conservative loss predicted by U.K. exit poll

Britain's Labour Party was headed for a landslide victory in a parliamentary election, an exit poll suggested, as voters punished the governing Conservatives after 14 years of economic and political upheaval.

The pollreleased moments after voting closed indicated that Labour Leader Keir Starmer will be the country's next prime minister.He will face a jaded electorate impatient for change against a gloomy backdrop of economic malaise, mounting distrust in institutions and a fraying social fabric.

"Tonight people here and around the country have spoken and they're ready for change," Starmer told supporters in his constituency in north London, as the official count showed he'd won his seat. "You have voted. It is now time for us to deliver."

The 61-year-old Starmer, a human rights lawyer and former Crown prosecutor, would be the first Labour prime minister since Gordon Brown. He became the Labour leader in 2020, saying the party had "a mountain to climb" before it could return to government.

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With the Labour Party projected to take a large majority in the U.K. Parliament, some voters explained why they or people they know couldn't bring themselves to vote for the incumbent Conservatives.

As thousands of electoral staff tallied millions of ballot papers at counting centres across the country, the Conservatives absorbed the shock of a historic defeat that will leave the depleted party in disarray and likely spark a contest to replace the 44-year-old Prime Minister Rishi Sunak as leader.

"Nothing has gone well in the last 14 years," said London voter James Erskine, who was optimistic for change in the hours before the poll closed.

"I just see this as the potential for a seismic shift, and that's what I'm hoping for."

'Catastrophic' for Tories

While the suggested result appears to buck recent rightward electoral shifts in Europe, including in France and Italy, many of those same populist undercurrents flow in Britain. Reform U.K. Leader Nigel Farage, 60, who won his own race for Parliament, has roiled the race with his party's anti-migrant "take our country back" sentiment and undercut support for the Conservatives, who already faced dismal prospects.

Labour is on course to win about 410 seats in the 650-seat House of Commons and the Conservatives 131, according to the exit poll. That would be the fewest number of seats for the Tories in their nearly two-century history.

Former Conservative leader William Hague said the poll indicated "a catastrophic result in historic terms" for the party.

Still, Labour politicians, inured to years of disappointment, were cautious.

"The exit poll is encouraging, but obviously we don't have any of the results yet," Angela Rayner,the party's deputy leader, told Sky News.

In a sign of the volatile public mood and anger at the system, some smaller parties appeared to have done well, including the centrist Liberal Democrats and Reform UK, Farage's hard-right party.A key unknown was whether it would be able to convertits success in grabbing attention into more than a handful of seats in Parliament.

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Polls suggest Labour Party leader Keir Starmer is set to become Britains next prime minister with a majority government in Thursdays national election. This would end 14 years of often tumultuous Conservative Party rule that saw Brexit, scandals and multiple leadership changes.

The exit poll is conducted by pollster Ipsos and asks people at scores of polling stations to fill out a replica ballot showing how theyvoted. It usually provides a reliable, though not exact, projection of the outcome.

"If this exit poll is correct, then this is a historic defeat for the Conservative Party, one of the most resilient forces that have we have seen in British political history," saidKeiran Pedley, research director at Ipsos.

Britons vote on paper ballots, marking their choice in pencil, that are then hand-counted. Final results are expected by Friday morning.

'Broken Britain'

Britain has experienced a run of turbulent years some of it of the Conservatives' making and some not that has left many voters pessimistic about their country's future.

Brexit the U.K.'s exit from the European Union followed by the COVID-19 pandemic and Russia's invasion of Ukraine, battered the economy, while lockdown-breaching parties held by then-Prime Minister Boris Johnson and his staff caused widespread anger.

Johnson's successor, Liz Truss, rocked the economy further with a package of drastic tax cuts and lasted just 49 days in office. Rising poverty and cuts to state services have led to gripes about "Broken Britain."

Britain has had five Conservative prime ministers since Labour last led the U.K. government. Sunak followed Truss as prime minister in 2022, after Johnson andTheresa May.Before them,there was David Cameron, who has recently been serving as Sunak's foreign minister.

Anand Menon, professor of European Politics and Foreign Affairs at King's College London, said British voters were about to see a marked change in political atmosphere from the tumultuous "politics as pantomime" of the last few years.

"I think we're going to have to get used again to relatively stable government, with ministers staying in power for quite a long time, and with government being able to think beyond the very short term to medium-term objectives," he said.

The Conservatives' campaign was besetby gaffes. It got off to an inauspicious start when rain drenched Sunak as he made the announcement outside 10 Downing St. Then, hewent home early from commemorations in France marking the 80th anniversary of the D-Day invasion.

"We deserved to lose. The Conservative Party just appears exhausted and out of ideas," said Ed Costello, the chairman of the Grassroots Conservatives organization, which represents rank-and-file members.

"But it is not all Rishi Sunak's fault. It is Boris Johnson and Liz Truss that have led the party to disaster. Rishi Sunak is just the fall guy."