In the exit poll, the Labour Party holds 410 of the 650 seats in the British Parliament. The Conservative Party is a considerable distance behind with 131 seats.
The Liberal Democrats will win 61 seats according to the exit poll. The anti-immigration Reform UK party enters parliament with 13 seats. The Scottish National Party (SNP) has 10 seats.
It means that Labour leader Keir Starmer will become Britain’s new Prime Minister. Although he does not look set to win the largest number of seats ever achieved by the Labour Party. In 1997, Tony Blair’s party won 418 of the then 659 British parliamentary seats. That victory also came after a very long reign of the Conservatives.
Immediately after the exit poll results were announced, Starmer thanked UK voters. “To everyone who campaigned for Labour during this election, and to everyone who voted for us and put their faith in our changed Labour Party, thank you,” the Labour leader wrote on X.
Historic loss
For the Conservative Party, the result, as now predicted by exit polls, represents a historic loss. Not since 1918 has the party, which has governed the country for the past fourteen years, won such a low number of seats. Voters seem to be punishing Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s party primarily for the country’s economic problems and the numerous scandals and internal party disputes in recent years.
Scotland’s scandal-plagued SNP is the second biggest loser. It will lose 38 of its 48 seats from 2019. This is the party’s lowest number of seats in the British Parliament since 2010.
The SNP has been in the news for some time now. Not only have two party leaders resigned in just over a year, but there is also a police investigation into the party’s finances underway. And there is division over the political direction to take within the party that advocates Scottish independence.
Former party leader Nicola Sturgeon said the exit poll was on the “bleak side of expectations” for her party. But she admitted she expects the exit poll to broadly match the final result. If the exit poll is correct, the SNP will no longer be the third-largest party in the British Parliament after Labour and the Conservative Party, but will fall to fifth place. Both the Liberal Democrats and the anti-immigration party Reform UK win more seats in the exit polls than the SNP.
Farage on behalf of Reform UK in the House of Commons
The 13 seats won by the anti-immigration Reform UK party are more than expected in pre-election polls. Party leader Nigel Farage, one of the driving forces behind Brexit, spoke of a “massive” result in a video message on X.
Farage himself was also elected, after seven failed attempts. He kept the Conservative candidate well behind him in the Clacton-on-Sea constituency. The trend in the exit polls is also confirmed by the first official results. In the few constituencies where votes have already been counted, a strong upward trend can be observed for Reform UK.
The number of votes for the party is higher than any possible prediction or projection. “It is almost unbelievable,” Farage said in his video message. “We are going to get more than six million votes. This, my friends, is huge.”
The projected number of thirteen seats for Farage’s party is low compared to the absolute number of votes the party looks set to receive. By that benchmark, the party will be the largest party in the country after Labour. However, the UK has a constituency system and Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s Conservatives win in ten times as many constituencies as Reform Britain, according to exit polls.
Farage finds it “almost ridiculous” that his party receives little media attention despite making solid gains. “There is not a single Reform UK representative in sight,” Farage said. “The mainstream media deny it.”
Read also:
Young, conservative Britons: “It feels like we’re on the Titanic”
Britain’s Conservative Party is heading for an unprecedented defeat in the July 4 election. She is completely unpopular with young people. There are exceptions, though. “There is black humour involved.”