By AP News
Photos: YouTube Screenshots\Wikimedia Commons
British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak says the British people have “delivered a sobering verdict” as he conceded that the center-left Labour Party has won the election. With more than two-thirds of votes counted, Labour has secured enough seats to form a majority government. Read more.
Why this matters:
After more than a decade in power under five different prime ministers, Sunak’s Conservatives are set to have their seats in the 650-seat House of Commons cut down to around 130. That would be the Tories’ worst result in the party’s two-century history and one that would leave the party in disarray.
Labour leader Keir Starmer will face a jaded electorate impatient for change against a gloomy backdrop of economic malaise, mounting distrust in institutions and a fraying social fabric. In a sign of the volatile public mood and anger at the system, some smaller parties appeared to have done well, including the centrist Liberal Democrats and Reform UK.
The results so far suggest Britain will buck recent rightward electoral shifts in Europe, including in France and Italy, but many of those same populist undercurrents still flow in the country.
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