The opposition Labour Party is leading in the general elections in the UK. This is evidenced by the data of exit poll conducted by Ipsos. The results are published by the BBC.
According to preliminary calculations, the votes were distributed as follows: Labour Party – 410 seats; Conservative Party – 131 seats; Reform UK – 13 seats; “Liberal Democrats” – 61 seats.
To form a majority, 326 seats in the House of Commons are needed.
Parliamentary elections are held every five years. In 2019, of the 650 seats in the House of Commons (the lower house of parliament), the Conservatives won 365 seats, while Labour won 203 seats. This time around, polls predicted a crushing defeat for the Conservatives, with The Economist calculating that the Tories will win four times fewer seats than Labour.
The Conservative Party’s rating has been falling consistently since November 2021: on November 22, the Politico counter recorded that Tory and Labour had equal support – 37% each; after that, the gap between them began to grow in favour of the latter. It reached a record before Rishi Sunak’s premiership (from 25 October 2022): 52% for Labour and 22% for the Tories. Reform UK’s rating has been rising for the last two years: in September 2022 it was 2% and in January 2024 it crossed the 10% mark.
The outcome of the election will determine who will be Prime Minister. Traditionally, the leader of the party that wins the majority of the popular vote gets this seat. If Labour wins, the prime minister will be Keir Starmer, who has led the party since 2020. A lawyer by training, he was attorney general of England and Wales from 2008 to 2013. He entered politics in 2015, having been elected to the House of Commons at that time. In 2016, then Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn appointed him shadow minister for Britain’s exit from the European Union. This position in the “government-in-waiting”, which is formed by the official opposition, Starmer held until 2020, when he won the intra-party elections and took Corbyn’s place, RBC specifies.
According to the procedure, as soon as the final results are announced, Rishi Sunak must resign, announcing it to King Charles III, after which Keir Starmer will apply to the monarch for permission to form a new government.
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