UK Elections: Britons go to the polls to elect a new Parliament with Labour as the big favourites

The British voters vote this Thursday in general elections in which the Labour Party led by Keir Starmer could obtain, according to polls, an absolute majority and end 14 years of conservative governments.

More than 45 million citizens in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, the four nations that make up the United Kingdom, are called to the polls to vote on the composition of the 650-seat House of Commons (lower) of Parliament.

Under the country’s single-member majoritarian electoral system, Labour will take power without having to form a coalition if it wins the target number of 326 seats, one more than the other parties.

The polling stations opened at 7:00 a.m. local time and will close at 10:00 p.m., when the first exit polls will be announced. awaiting the official result in the early hours of Friday.

Conservative Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, 44, has appeared to accept defeat in recent days, calling for votes to prevent a Labour “supermajority”.

According to polls, Starmer’s party, 61, is expected to win more than half of the seats in the House of Commons. The latest YouGov poll on Wednesday gave Starmer’s party 431 seats, a record for an election won by Labour, surpassing Tony Blair’s mark of 418 in 1997.

Under the British electoral system, which allocates a single seat to the party with the most votes in each constituency, Labour would win 431 seats, the Conservatives 102, the Liberal Democrats 72, the Greens 2 and Reform UK 3, according to this projection.

In terms of voting percentage, These projections give 39% to Labour, 22% to the Tories, 15% to the far-right anti-immigration Reform UK, 12% to the Liberal Democrats and 7% to the Greens.

During the election campaign, Starmer has maintained an advantage of around 20 percentage points over Sunak.

The Tories, for their part, are arriving at this election, called by Sunak on 22 May, with a lot of wear and tear behind them, after the marathon Brexit negotiations, the pandemic, the energy crisis caused by the war in Ukraine, the scandals that plagued Boris Johnson’s administration – in power between 2019 and 2022 – due to “partygate” (the parties in Downing Street during Covid-19), but above all due to the crisis in the cost of living and the increase in immigration – both legal and illegal.

Rishi Sunak and Keir Starmer cast their votes in the elections

Both Sunak and Starmer have already voted in their respective constituencies on Thursday.

Sunak was with his wife, Akshata Murty, at his polling station in Northallerton, in the north of England, to vote. The Conservative leader said “good morning” to the journalists waiting for him at the Kirby Sigston polling station in Northallerton, a town in the county of North Yorkshire.

According to The Times newspaper, The British prime minister hopes to continue as leader of the Conservative Party if he loses Thursday’s general election in order to avoid internal fighting within his party.

Ministers, the paper reported, have asked Sunak to stay on as Tory leader until September to avoid further internal chaos following what looks like a landslide Labour victory.

Ministers fear that Sunak, following the defeat, may be tempted to resign immediately.

The leader of the opposition Labour Party, Keir Starmer, also went to cast his vote in his constituency of Holborn and St Pancras (London) on Thursday. along with his wife, Victoria. The couple allowed themselves to be photographed by the media upon their arrival, smiling and holding hands.

The issues that are weighing on conservatives in the elections

The still Prime Minister Sunak came to office in October 2022 after a disastrous economic mandate of just 49 days by Liz Trusswho had replaced Boris Johnson, embroiled in the scandal of parties at his official residence during Covid.

Sunak has campaigned to highlight that he has reduced inflation from 11% to 2% year-on-year in less than two years in office.

But the Conservative electorate seems disenchanted with the Tories. Brexit in 2020 and its consequences for the British economy, Covid and the increase in the cost of living have all contributed to the Conservative downfall.

For its part, Labour’s Starmer appears to have benefited from moving his party towards more centrist positions after the defeat in the 2019 election of his predecessor, Jeremy Corbyn, who was more left-wing.

“I woke up thinking there might be a change of scenery, but I’m not sure,” Ianthe Jacob, a 32-year-old writer, told AFP.

“I really feel that everything has gone wrong in this country,” she said as she left a polling station in east London. “How could a developed country have ended up like this?”

I really feel that everything has gone wrong in this country. How is it possible that a developed country has ended up like this?

The far-right Reform UK party appears as the third possible force in terms of percentage of votes in these elections.by Nigel Farage, one of the driving forces behind Brexit.

Farage, who has failed to win a seat seven times, could lose the Conservative Party seats.

Some polls put Farage at between 15 and 17% of the total vote, close to the figures predicted for the Conservatives.

Reform UK would still get far fewer seats than the Conservatives, or even the Liberal Democrats, because of Britain’s electoral system, where every seat in each constituency goes to the winning party.

Sunak, facing unfavourable polls, sought votes by repeatedly accusing Starmer of raising taxes.

“There will be no increase in income tax, social security or VAT,” replied Starmer this week, who stressed in his campaign that he would only raise rates for certain taxpayers, including private schools or companies in the hydrocarbon sector, but not for workers.

Starmer, with the polls favourable, kept a low profile, promising cautious management of the economy, in a long-term growth plan that includes strengthening criticised public services, particularly healthcare.

“The important thing is to grow the economy and create wealth,” said Starmer, who lacks the charisma of Blair, who also ended 18 years of Conservative rule in 1997.