Labour has won the UK general election with a landslide, with results from almost all the parliamentary seats declared. Keir Starmer will be the next prime minister, telling supporters at a victory rally that “change begins now.”
The Conservative Party suffered a heavy defeat after 14 years in government, bringing a brutal end to the premiership of Rishi Sunak. Several cabinet ministers lost their seats, as did former PM Liz Truss.
Nigel Farage’s populist Reform UK party won its first seats and came second in many more, splitting the right-wing vote and contributing to the Conservatives’ losses.
The Liberal Democrats will be the third biggest party in parliament after its best result in years. The Greens made gains while the Scottish National Party suffered a collapse, and is on course to lose almost 40 seats.
Outgoing Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has arrived in London to begin the process of formally standing down and allowing election winner Keir Starmer to form a government.
A plane reported to be carrying Sunak landed at the RAF Northolt airbase in west London shortly after 7 a.m. local time (2 a.m. ET), according to video carried by British broadcasters.
Sunak then traveled to the Conservative party headquarters in London where he is expected to address party members and staff.
He is expected to make a statement at Downing Street at approximately 10.30 a.m. local time (5.30 a.m. ET), before travelling to Buckingham Palace to tender his resignation to King Charles, according to a provisional timeline of events released by the Prime Minister’s office.
Labour Party leader Keir Starmer will then have an audience with the King, who will officially ask him to form a government.
Starmer will then travel to Downing Street and address the nation as new Prime Minister at around 12.20 p.m. local time (7.20 a.m. ET).
While it undoubtedly has been a good night for Labour, its stance on the war in Gaza has cost the party votes.
Pro-Palestinian independent candidates have managed to upset Labour in three constituencies the party won in 2019: Blackburn, Leicester South and Islington North.
Adnan Hussain, who promised to make sure that opposition to “the injustice being inflicted against the people of Gaza be heard,” won in Blackburn, a constituency which had previously voted Labour in every election since it was created in 1955.
Meanwhile, Labour’s Shadow Paymaster General Jonathan Ashworth, who had been Leicester South’s MP since 2011, was unseated by the independent candidate Shockat Adam, who won 35.2% compared to Ashworth’s 32.9%.
“As a genocide is being committed in Gaza, according to all human rights observers, many have expressed feeling betrayed and ignored on this matter,” Adam said in his campaign to win the Leicester South constituency.
Former left-wing Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, who was expelled from the party in a spat over antisemitism, won the Islington North constituency as an independent. His win gives him the opportunity to challenge the current Labour leader (and next PM) Keir Starmer in parliament, who has sought to remold Labour from the Corbyn era.
However, Labour has gained the Rochdale constituency from the pro-Palestine politician George Galloway.
Galloway dramatically won the constituency in a by-election earlier this year, in which he accused the “political class” of having “failed Rochdale, failed Britain and failed Gaza.”
