UK Labor on course for landslide victory, exit poll suggests, amid anger against Tories

LONDON (AP) — Britain’s Labor Party headed for a landslide victory in the general election on Friday, an exit poll suggested, as voters punished the ruling Conservatives after 14 years of economic and political turmoil.

The poll released minutes after voting closed indicated that centre-left Labor leader Keir Starmer would be the country’s next prime minister. He will face a tired electorate impatient for change against a bleak backdrop of economic malaise, growing distrust of institutions and a degenerating social fabric.

As thousands of election workers counted millions of ballots at counting centers across the country, the Conservatives absorbed the shock of a historic defeat that would leave the depleted party in disarray and likely trigger a contest to replace Prime Minister Rishi Sunak as leader.

“Nothing has gone right for the last 14 years,” said London voter James Erskine, who sounded optimistic about change in the hours before the polls closed. “I see this as the potential for a seismic shift, and I hope so.”

While the suggested outcome seems to contradict recent electoral shifts to the right in Europe, including France and Italy, many of the same populist currents are flowing in Britain. Britain’s reformist leader Nigel Farage rocked the race with his anti-immigrant party’s “take our country back” sentiment and undermined support for the Tories, who already faced a bleak outlook.

Labor is on course to win around 410 seats in the House of Commons, with 650 seats and the Conservatives 131, according to exit polls. These would be the fewest seats for the Tories in their almost two-century history and would leave the party in disarray.

In a sign of volatile public mood and anger at the system, some smaller parties appeared to have done well, including Britain’s centrist Liberal Democrats and reformers. A key unknown was whether Farage’s right-wing party could turn its success into gaining more than a few seats in Parliament.

Former Conservative leader William Hague said the poll indicated “a catastrophic result in historical terms for the Conservative Party”.

However, Labor politicians, accustomed to years of disappointment, were cautious.

“The exit poll is encouraging, but obviously we don’t have any results yet,” deputy leader Angela Rayner told Sky News.

The poll is carried out by pollster Ipsos and asks people at dozens of polling stations to fill in a copy of their ballot showing how they voted. It usually provides a reliable but not accurate projection of the outcome.

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

Britain has been through a series of turbulent years – some of them even by the Tories and some of them not – that have left many voters pessimistic about the future of their country. Britain’s exit from the European Union, followed by the COVID-19 pandemic and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, hurt the economy, while blockade-breaking parties organized by then-prime minister Boris Johnson and his staff sparked widespread anger .

Johnson’s successor, Liz Truss, further shook the economy with a package of drastic tax cuts and lasted just 49 days in office. Rising poverty and cuts to state services led to discontent about ‘Broken Britain’.

Hundreds of communities have been locked in tight contests where traditional party loyalties come second to more immediate concerns about the economy, crumbling infrastructure and the National Health Service.

In Henley-on-Thames, about 40 miles (65 kilometers) west of London, voters like Patricia Mulcahy, who is retired, felt the nation was looking for something different. The community, which normally votes conservative, could change this time.

“The younger generation is much more interested in change,” Mulcahy said. “So I think whatever happens in Henley, in the country, it will be a big change. But whoever gets in has one hell of a job ahead of them. It won’t be easy.”

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 the political atmosphere from the tumultuous “pantomime politics” of recent years.

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

In the first hour the polls opened, Sunak made the short journey from his home to vote at Kirby Sigston Village Hall in northern England. He arrived with his wife Akshata Murty and walked hand in hand into the village hall, which is surrounded by rolling fields.

A few hours later, Starmer went with his wife, Victoria, to a polling station in north London to cast his vote.

Labor has not set pulses racing with its pledges to boost the sluggish economy, invest in infrastructure and make Britain a “clean energy superpower”.

But nothing went wrong in his campaign either. The party won the support of large parts of the business community and the backing of traditional Tory newspapers, including the Rupert Murdoch-owned Sun tabloid, which praised Starmer for “drag[ing]his party back to the center of British politics”.

Conservatives, meanwhile, have been hurt by the blunders. The campaign got off to an inauspicious start when rain drenched Sunak as he made the announcement outside 10 Downing St. Sunak then went home early from commemorations in France marking the 80th anniversary of the D-Day invasion.

Several conservatives close to Sunak are under investigation over suspicions they used insider information to place bets on the election date before it was announced.

Sunak struggled to shake off the taint of political chaos and mismanagement that had gathered around the Conservatives.

But for many voters, the lack of trust applies not just to the ruling party, but to politicians in general.

“I don’t know who it is for me as a working person,” said Michelle Bird, a dockworker from Southampton on England’s south coast who was undecided about whether to vote Labor or Conservative in the days before the election. “I don’t know if it’s the devil you know or the devil you don’t know.”

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Brian Melley and Jill Lawless, Associated Press