Labour wins UK election by a landslide, exit polls show

The Labour Party has won a landslide parliamentary majority in Thursday’s election, according to exit polls released by the main British television channels. The party’s leader, Keir Starmer, who will be given the mandate by King Charles III to form a government on Friday and will become the new prime minister, is preparing to put an end to a conservative era that has lasted for 14 years in the United Kingdom.

The Ipsos poll, conducted by sociologist John Curtice for the BBC, ITV and Sky News, gives Starmer 410 seats in a House of Commons with 650. The Conservative Party would collapse, with 131 seats (234 fewer than it won in 2019). The party of the populist Nigel Farage would finally enter Parliament, with 13 MPs. The Liberal Democrats, with 61 representatives, would recover from their crisis by becoming the third force. The Scottish nationalists of the SNP, on the other hand, would fall dramatically from their 48 MPs (currently 43) to just 10..

The poll, released shortly after 10pm on Thursday, has proven highly accurate in its prediction of the last five parliamentary elections. If it is right again this time, Labour would have secured its biggest lead in seats over its rival, the Conservatives, since 1832.

Tony Blair’s New Labour won a total of 418 seats in 1997, but the Conservatives only won 165 seats.

Time to “roll up your sleeves”

If the results confirm this overwhelming result, Starmer will have obtained on Thursday what he insistently asked for during six weeks of campaigning: a majority comfortable enough to be able to push through the “change” promised in the election posters and speeches. A powerful mandate to be able to “roll up his sleeves” immediately and improve the lives of citizens.

The Labour leader has worked closely all this time with a team of “shadow ministers” (as the opposition spokespersons for each area of ​​government are known), to immediately implement the first measures. Sue Gray, the senior official who drew up the damning report on the banned parties in Downing Street during the lockdown, decided more than a year ago to accept Starmer’s offer and be his chief of staff. Professional, rigorous, and highly regarded by the politicians who have dealt with her, Gray has been in charge of ensuring that the machinery of the government transition runs smoothly.

Starmer’s five objectives

The Labour leader has set a very high bar for his promises and ambitions. In recent months, if he comes to power, he has announced a “national renewal” that will completely change the panorama of deterioration and stagnation in the United Kingdom.

There are five priority objectives that the electoral programme has set out as a matter of urgency: returning the country to the path of economic growth; reforming the National Health Service (NHS), which has waiting lists of nearly eight million people; introducing improvements to the police and penal system, so that the streets of the main cities are safer; achieving more affordable ‘green’ energy for citizens through a new public company, Great British Energy; and a general improvement in life opportunities for all citizens.

The new government will probably enjoy the support and goodwill of business and the markets in its first days. The memory of the disastrous 45 days of former Prime Minister Liz Truss and the way she sank the international economic credibility of the United Kingdom, paradoxically plays in favour of Starmer and his team.

Starmer and his shadow chancellor, Rachel Reeves, have managed to convey to business and the markets an image of seriousness and fiscal responsibility. Their announcements of future tax increases have been very measured, with more of a symbolic character than potential revenue-raising.

Starmer and Reeves have pledged not to touch either income tax or corporation tax, at least in their first term. That is why many experts have expressed scepticism about all of Labour’s promises – thousands of new additions to the healthcare workforce, or thousands of new teachers – as it is unclear where the necessary funding for all these improvements will come from.

The commitment to growth

Economic growth. That is the new prime minister’s obsession. Growth so that wealth is redistributed and reaches everyone’s pockets. An idea that may sound voluntaristic, but which is accompanied by a series of proposals for structural reforms that aim to facilitate the United Kingdom’s exit from a stagnation that has dragged on for almost a decade and a half.

For example, a new urban planning system that would speed up the process of expropriation and curtail the rights of many property owners, who have so far managed to prolong, increase the cost of and even paralyse essential projects such as the high-speed line to the north of England.

Or a reform of labour legislation that improves the rights of UK workers, making job changes more attractive and the market more agile and productive.

But the main challenge for the incoming government in the first days of the English summer will be the same crisis that Sunak has made his personal obsession: the wave of illegal immigrants who continue to arrive on the shores of the United Kingdom. Official forecasts suggest that this year’s figure could be very high again: up to 40,000 new asylum seekers. Starmer has promised to scrap plans to deport people to Rwanda, as ineffective, and to concentrate on setting up a new Joint Border Control Command, which will hit hard at the mafias that transport immigrants.

A new relationship with Europe

With Brexit shelved and no possibility of reversing the situation, the new Prime Minister has announced an improvement in relations with the EU, starting with strengthening cooperation in the areas of Security and Defence. This is the way, he predicted, to achieve other necessary improvements, such as a more fluid commercial relationship with the Community internal market.

On 18 July, 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 to reach an 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 out before both Houses the legislative agenda of His Majesty’s new Government, which, 14 years later, will once again have a social democratic flavour.

In the opposition benches, the deputies of the Conservative Party – those who have managed to survive the electoral massacre – will be more concerned with their immediate future than with the Government’s plans. Tories They will soon have to decide whether they continue down the slope of right-wing populism or want to become a party with the will to govern again.

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