UK Labour Party sweeps to power in historic election win. But impatient voters mean big challenges
UNB
Publish: 05 Jul 2024, 10:57 PM
London,
Jul 5 (AP/UNB)-Britain's Labour Party swept to power Friday after more than a
decade in opposition, official results showed, as a jaded electorate appeared
to hand the party a landslide victory but also a mammoth task of reinvigorating
a stagnant economy and dispirited nation.
Labour leader Keir
Starmer will officially become prime minister later in the day, leading his
party back to government less than five years after it suffered its worst
defeat in almost a century. In the brutal choreography of British politics, he
will take charge in 10 Downing St. hours after the votes are counted - as
Conservative leader Rishi Sunak is hustled out.
"A mandate like
this comes with a great responsibility," Starmer acknowledged in a speech
to supporters, saying that the fight to regain people's trust "is the
battle that defines our age."
Speaking as drawn broke
in London, he said Labour would offer "the sunlight of hope, pale at first
but getting stronger though the day."
Sunak conceded defeat,
saying the voters had delivered a "sobering verdict."
Labour's triumph and
challenges
For Starmer, it's a
massive triumph that will bring huge challenges, as he faces a jaded electorate
impatient for change against a gloomy backdrop of economic malaise, mounting
distrust in institutions and a fraying social fabric.
"Nothing has gone
well in the last 14 years," said London voter James Erskine, who was
optimistic for change in the hours before polls closed. "I just see this
as the potential for a seismic shift, and that's what I'm hoping for."
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.
Britain has experienced
a run of turbulent years - some of it of the Conservatives' own making and some
of it not - that has left many voters pessimistic about their country's future.
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."
While the 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 UK
leader Nigel Farage has roiled the race with his party's anti-immigrant "take
our country back" sentiment and undercut support for the Conservatives,
who already faced dismal prospects.
The exit poll suggested
Labour was on course to win about 410 seats in the 650-seat House of Commons
and the Conservatives 131.
With a majority of
results in, the broad picture of a Labour landslide was borne out, though
estimates of the final tally varied. The BBC projected that Labour would end up
with 410 seats and the Conservatives with 144.
Conservative vote
collapses as smaller parties surge
Even that higher tally
for the Tories would leave the party with the fewest seats in its nearly two-century
history and cause disarray.
The result is a
catastrophe for the Conservatives as voters punished them for 14 years of
presiding over austerity, Brexit, a pandemic, political scandals and
internecine Tory conflict. The historic defeat leaves the party depleted and in
disarray and will likely spark an immediate contest to replace Sunak as leader.
In a sign of the
volatile public mood and anger at the system, some smaller parties picked up
millions of votes, including the centrist Liberal Democrats and Farage's Reform
UK. Farage won his race in the seaside town of Clacton-on-Sea, securing a seat
in Parliament on his eighth attempt, and Reform has won four seats so far.
The Liberal Democrats
won many more than that on a slightly lower share of the vote because its votes
were more efficiently distributed. In Britain's first-past-the-post system, the
candidate with the most votes in each constituency wins.
Labour was cautious but
reliable
Hundreds of seats
changed hands in tight contests in which traditional party loyalties come
second to more immediate concerns about the economy, crumbling infrastructure
and the National Health Service.
Labour did not set
pulses racing with its pledges to get the sluggish economy growing, invest in
infrastructure and make Britain a "clean energy superpower."
But the party's
cautious, safety-first campaign delivered the desired result. The party won the
support of large chunks of the business community and endorsements from
traditionally conservative newspapers, including the Rupert Murdoch-owned Sun
tabloid, which praised Starmer for "dragging his party back to the center
ground of British politics."
Conservative missteps
The Conservative
campaign, meanwhile, was plagued by gaffes. The campaign got off to an
inauspicious start when rain drenched Sunak as he made the announcement outside
10 Downing St. Then, Sunak went home early from commemorations in France
marking the 80th anniversary of the D-Day invasion.
Several Conservatives
close to Sunak are being investigated over suspicions they used inside
information to place bets on the date of the election before it was announced.
Sunak has struggled to
shake off the taint of political chaos and mismanagement that's gathered around
the Conservatives.
In Henley-on-Thames,
about 40 miles (65 kilometers) west of London, voters like Patricia Mulcahy,
who is retired, sensed the nation was looking for something different. The
community, which normally votes Conservative, may change its stripes this time.
"The younger
generation are far more interested in change,'' Mulcahy said. "But whoever
gets in, they've got a heck of a job ahead of them. It's not going to be
easy."