Exit polls show Labour Party wins UK election with a landslide | International

The Labour Party has won a landslide parliamentary majority in this Thursday’s election, according to exit polls released by major British television networks. The party’s leader, Keir Starmer, who will receive the mandate from King Charles III this Friday to form a government and become the new prime minister, is preparing to end the long-running conservative era…

The Labour Party has won a landslide parliamentary majority in this Thursday’s election, according to exit polls released by major British television networks. The party’s leader, Keir Starmer, who will receive the mandate from King Charles III this Friday to form a government and become the new prime minister, is preparing to end the 14-year conservative era in the United Kingdom.

The Ipsos survey, conducted by sociologist John Curtice for the BBC, ITV and Sky News networks, gives Starmer 410 deputies, with 650 in the House of Commons. The Conservative Party would sink to 131 seats (234 less than the seats obtained in 2019). The party of populist Nigel Farage would finally enter parliament with 13 representatives. The Liberal Democrats would recover from their crisis to become the third force with 61 representatives. On the other hand, the Scottish nationalists of the SNP would drop from their 48 representatives (currently 43) to only 10.,

The survey, released shortly after 10:00 pm on Thursday (11:00 pm Spanish peninsular time), has demonstrated great accuracy in predicting the last five parliamentary elections. If it is right again this time, Labor will have the winner’s biggest seat advantage over the rival party since 1931, and Tory They would have recorded their worst historical result (so far this was in 1906, with 150 delegates).

Tony Blair’s New Labour won a total of 418 seats in 1997, but the Conservatives then won 165 deputies, making Starmer’s victory even more comfortable.

“To everyone who has campaigned for Labour in these elections, to everyone who has voted for us and put their trust in a renewed Labour Party, thank you,” Starmer wrote when the exit poll results were known.

Time to “roll up your sleeves”

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If the results confirm this overwhelming outcome, the Labor candidate will have achieved this Thursday what he has stressed during the six-week campaign: a comfortable majority enough to be able to promote the “change” promised on election posters and in speeches. A powerful mandate to be able to immediately “roll up our sleeves” and start improving the lives of citizens.

Starmer has worked closely all this time with a team of shadow ministers (as opposition spokesmen from each area of ​​government are known) to quickly implement the first measures. Senior official Sue Gray, who produced the damning report on banned Downing Street parties during confinement, decided more than a year ago to accept Starmer’s offer and become his chief of staff. Professional, tough, with a high reputation among the politicians who work with him, Gray has been in charge of ensuring that the machinery of government change runs smoothly.

Starmer’s five goals

The Labour leader has set the bar very high for his promises and ambitions. In recent months, he has declared that, if he comes to power, he will carry out a “national renewal” that will completely transform the landscape of decline and stagnation in the United Kingdom.

There are five priority objectives that his electoral programme sets out as a matter of urgency: put the country back on a path of economic growth; reform the National Health Service (NHS), which has a waiting list of around eight million people; reform the police and criminal systems so that the streets of main cities are safer; make ‘green’ energy more affordable for citizens through a new public company, Great British Energy; and general improvement of life chances for all citizens.

The new government will likely enjoy the support and goodwill of the business community and markets in its first days. The memory of former Prime Minister Liz Truss’s disastrous 45 days in office, and the way they tarnished the United Kingdom’s international economic credibility, paradoxically works in Starmer and his team’s favour.

Starmer and his shadow economy minister, Rachel Reeves, have managed to project an image of seriousness and fiscal responsibility to businesses and markets. Their announcements of future tax rises are very measured, with a more symbolic character than potential revenue.

Starmer and Reeves have promised not to touch income tax or corporate tax, at least in their first term. That’s why many experts have expressed their scepticism about all of Labor’s promises – thousands of new additions to the health workforce, or thousands of new teachers – because they are unclear about where the funding needed for all these reforms will come from.

Commitment to development

Economic growth. That is the new Prime Minister’s passion. Growth so that wealth is redistributed and reaches all pockets. An idea that may sound arbitrary, but it is accompanied by a series of proposals for structural reforms aimed at helping the United Kingdom break out of the stagnation it has been in for almost a decade and a half.

For example, a new urban planning system that speeds up the process of expropriation and cuts the rights of many owners who have so far managed to stay afloat could make essential projects such as the high-speed line in the north of England more expensive and even paralyse them.

Or labour law reform that improves the rights of UK workers, so that changing jobs is more attractive and there are gains in agility and productivity in the market.

But the main challenge of the incoming government, in the first days of the English summer, will be the same crisis that Sunak turned into his personal obsession: the wave of irregular immigrants that is arriving on the shores of the United Kingdom. Official forecasts suggest that this year’s figure could again be very high, with up to 40,000 new asylum seekers. Starmer has promised to end deportation schemes to Rwanda as ineffective and focus on launching a new joint border control command, which will deal a serious blow to the mafias that transport immigrants.

A new relationship with Europe

With Brexit pending and no prospects of a change in the status quo, the new Prime Minister has announced an improvement in relations with the EU, starting with strengthening cooperation in matters of security and defence. He predicts that this is the way other necessary reforms will be achieved, such as a more fluid commercial relationship with the Community internal market.

On July 18, Starmer will host the fourth summit of the European Political Community at Blenheim Palace in Woodstock, where he will be able to demonstrate his desire for understanding with his EU colleagues.

The day before, on the 17th, the ‘King’s Speech’ will have taken place in the Westminster Parliament. Charles III will read before both houses the legislative agenda of His Majesty’s new government, which will once again have a social democratic flavour after 14 years.

On the opposition benches, representatives of the Conservative Party – who have managed to avoid the electoral carnage – will be more conscious of their own immediate future than of the government’s plans. Tory They will soon have to decide whether they want to continue sliding down the slope of right-wing populism or once again become a group with the will to govern.

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