A decisive end to 14 years of Conservative rule
Britain’s Labour Party won a landslide election victory last night, sweeping the Conservative Party out of power after 14 years.
As of the time of sending this newsletter, the Labour Party had won 388 of the 650 votes in the British House of Commons, versus 97 for the Conservatives, in the worst defeat in the nearly 200-year history of the party. Keir Starmer, a former human rights lawyer, will be Britain’s next prime minister.
Earlier this morning, the outgoing prime minister, Rishi Sunak, conceded defeat, and he said that he had called Starmer to congratulate him. “The British people have delivered a sobering verdict tonight,” he said.
While a Labour victory had long been predicted, the magnitude of the Tory defeat will reverberate through Britain for months, if not years. Here’s our recap of the night.
I spoke to Mark Landler, our London bureau chief, about the result.
What does Labour’s landslide victory tell us about the mood in Britain?
This is an electorate that is fed up with its government after 14 years marked by chaos, by turbulence and, in the last few years, by some real economic hardship. British voters are desperate for a change. They’re not persuaded that the Labour Party can deliver radically different results than the Conservatives, but at this point, they’re willing to take the chance. So it is a classic anti-incumbent vote.
How plausible is it that the Labour Party can offer solutions to the country’s difficulties?
Labour’s victory was impressive, but its challenge is huge. It has a public that is not going to cut it that much slack on the economy, on public services and also on what to do about immigration. In these three areas, this Labour government is going to have to show some relatively quick results in order to keep the faith that these voters have placed in the party.
What does it mean for the Conservative Party?
It’s the worst defeat the Conservatives have had in their modern history, and it will plunge the party into a very deep period of introspection. It will probably be marked by a fairly bitter battle for the soul of the party. You could imagine the party lurching to the right, perhaps taking the conclusion that they should have run a much more right-wing campaign. That would certainly be in keeping with the last time the Conservatives lost to Tony Blair, in 1997.
At a minimum, you’re looking at a party that’s in the political wilderness for five years, possibly longer than that. There will be a great deal of internal debate and discussion over what kind of party they want to create out of the ashes of this period.
How does the result fit into the wider international landscape?
Britain held a fairly conventional election, certainly by the standards of elections we’re seeing in other countries. The debates were over fairly plain, vanilla issues — tax policy, public services, government spending — and it has resulted in a government and a prime minister who also look quite conventional at a time when the far right is on the move in France and in Germany, and when there is a lot of political uncertainty and even chaos in the United States.
You’re going to have a British prime minister in Keir Starmer who is going to appear almost like a bulwark for liberal democracy, and for a very conventional approach to politics. In a sense, he may be playing the role that Angela Merkel in Germany played when Donald Trump was elected president the first time in the United States.
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That’s it for today’s briefing. Have a great weekend. — Natasha
Reach Natasha and the team at [email protected].
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