The Labour Party has won the UK general election with an absolute majority, ending 14 years of Conservative ‘dominance’. Keir Starmer, the party’s leader and the country’s new prime minister, ousted Rishi Sunak with a landslide victory.
With some constituencies still to be confirmed, the count already confirms Labour’s absolute majority (more than 326 seats) by securing more than 400 seats out of 650. The centre-left party is on track to record its best result since former leader Tony Blair’s record 418 in 1997. The progress is evident since in the last election, the party won 202 seats.
According to the latest figures, Labour won 36% of the vote, compared to 23% for the Conservatives, with a turnout of around 60%. It should be remembered that in the British electoral system (single-member majority), the candidate with the most votes in each of the 650 constituencies wins, regardless of the percentage of the vote of the parties at the national level.
The Conservative debacle is set to surpass any precedent. The count gives them 95 seats so far, which means losing more than 200 seats from the 365 that Boris Johnson won in 2019 with his promise to implement Brexit. The collapse leaves some big names in the party, such as former prime minister Liz Truss and defence secretary Grant Shapps, without a seat.
“We’ve done it,” Starmer told supporters after confirming that he had won enough seats for an absolute majority in the House of Commons. “And it feels good, to be honest,” he admitted, and then warned that “a mandate like this comes with great responsibility”.
