Here’s the latest in the British election.

 

Updated

July 4, 2024, 5:02 p.m. ET16 minutes ago

https://www.nytimes.com/live/2024/07/04/world/uk-election-results

 

16 minutes ago

Mark Landler Reporting from London

 

Here’s the latest in the British election.

Britain’s Labour Party was projected on Thursday evening to win a landslide election victory, sweeping the Conservative Party out of power after 14 years, in a thundering anti-incumbent revolt that heralded a new era in British politics.

 

A nationwide exit poll conducted for the BBC and two other broadcasters indicated that Labour was on course to win around 410 of the 650 seats in the British House of Commons, versus 131 for the Conservatives.

 

If the projections are confirmed, it would be one of the worst defeats for the Conservatives in the nearly 200-year history of the party, one that would raise searching questions about its future — and even its very viability.

 

The exit poll, which has accurately predicted the winner of the last five British general elections, confirmed a mutinous electorate, thoroughly fed up with the Conservatives after a turbulent era that spanned austerity, Brexit, the Covid pandemic, the serial scandals of Prime Minister Boris Johnson and the ill-fated tax-cutting proposals of his successor, Liz Truss.

 

While a Labour victory had long been predicted — it held a double-digit polling lead over the Conservatives for more than 18 months — the magnitude of the Tory defeat will reverberate through Britain for months, if not years.

 

As votes were being counted and final results expected Friday morning, a Labour triumph would put Britain at odds with the hard-right, populist tide that is rippling across France and other European countries. Keir Starmer, the Labour leader who is set to become prime minister, has promised a fiscally prudent, center-left government “in the service of working people.”

 

Here’s what else to know:

 

Labour’s makeover: For Mr. Starmer, a low-key human rights lawyer who only entered Parliament in 2015, it was a remarkable vindication of his four-year project to pull the Labour Party away from the left-wing policies of his predecessor, Jeremy Corbyn, and rebrand it as a plausible alternative to the increasingly erratic rule of the Conservatives.

 

Right-wing ferment: Reform U.K., an insurgent, anti-immigration party, was projected to win 13 seats, with one likely to go to Nigel Farage, the party leader and veteran political disrupter who had failed in seven previous bids to get into Parliament. With that potent new platform, Mr. Farage has threatened to try to poach the remnants of the debilitated Conservatives or even take over the party himself.

 

Historic defeat: Less than five years ago, the Conservatives won 365 seats, the most since 1987, when they were led by Margaret Thatcher. Lured by Mr. Johnson’s promise to “get Brexit done,” disenchanted Labour voters in the Midlands and northern England switched to the Tories. The exit poll indicated that many of these voters had flocked back to Labour, while others cast protest votes for Reform U.K. The Conservatives also bled support among young people and in their traditional heartland, the prosperous villages and towns of England’s south and southwest, where the centrist Liberal Democrats were projected to win seats.

 

Sunak’s future: Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s future as the Conservatives’ leader appeared dim. Several of his cabinet ministers looked likely to lose their parliamentary seats, which would leave the party without several of its so-called big beasts who have dominated British politics.

 

Unhappy electorate: Voters expressed frustration with the torpid economy, a major increase in immigration following Britain’s departure from the European Union and an overburdened National Health Service, which resulted in long waiting times for patients.