UK’s Labour Party expected to win an overall majority – BBC exit poll

SAO PAULO (ICIS)–The UK’s public broadcaster BBC was predicting a landslide victory for the center-left Labour Party after polling stations closed at 22.00 local time in London.

According to the BBC exit poll, Labour would have won around 410 members of parliament (MPs) in the 650-strong House of Commons, with its leader Keir Starmer set to be the UK’s next Prime Minister.

Incumbent Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s Conservative party lost the overall majority won in 2019, suffering a severe defeat after losing more than 200 MPs.

If the BBC exit poll is confirmed, the new House of Commons would be a more plural parliament, with the centrist Liberal-Democrats recovering much ground and the far-left Green Party and the far-right Reform party having achieved some meaningful representation.

Earlier in 2024, the UK’s chemicals trade group the CIA said the upcoming cabinet must do more to encourage investment in manufacturing value chains, arguing the country is losing out in the battle to attract investment against competitors such as the EU, the US and China.

14 YEARS LATER
Labour last occupied office in 2010 under the premiership of Gordon Brown, who succeeded Tony Blair in 2007.

From 2010 on, Conservative leaders David Cameron, Theresa May, Boris Johnson, Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak have been the residents of Number 10 Downing Street, the official residence of the Prime Minister in central London.

Behind them, a convulse decade-and-a-half in UK politics when voters decided by a small margin to withdraw from the EU in 2016, a process which was not concluded until 2021.

From 2020 on, pandemic-related mismanagement and the energy crisis have kept the governing party trailing in opinion polls.

On Thursday’s election, several ministers and key Conservatives figures would have lost their seat in parliament, according to the BBC’s exit poll.

UK House of Commons	Projections 2024 – BBC	Election 2019	Change
Conservative Party	131	365	-234
Labour Party	410	203	+207
Scottish National Party	10	48	-38
Liberal-Democrats	61	11	+50
Others	38	23	+15