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July 5, 2024, 5:49 a.m. ET
Mark Landler,Megan Specia and Stephen Castle
Reporting from London
Here’s the latest in Britain’s election.
A new prime minister was preparing to take office in Britain on Friday after the center-left Labour Party won a landslide election victory, sweeping the Conservatives out of power after 14 years in an anti-incumbent revolt that heralded a new era in the nation’s politics.
Keir Starmer, the Labour leader and incoming prime minister, was expected to deliver a speech outside No. 10 Downing Street shortly after noon local time (7 a.m. Eastern). Appearing before a crowd of supporters in the early morning hours in London, Mr. Starmer promised to “rebuild our country.”
The outgoing prime minister, Rishi Sunak, delivered brief, conciliatory remarks in Downing Street, accepting responsibility for his party’s resounding defeat and saying to voters that he had “heard your anger.” He congratulated Mr. Starmer, and would travel to Buckingham Palace to deliver his formal resignation to King Charles III.
With almost all 650 races declared, Labour had won more than 400 seats and the Conservatives were on course for fewer than 130. That would be the worst defeat for the Conservatives in the nearly 200-year history of the party.
But it was also an exceptionally fragmented result, with gains not only for Reform U.K., an anti-immigrant party, but for the Green Party and for pro-Palestinian independent candidates in formerly safe Labour seats. The BBC estimated Labour’s nationwide share of the vote at about 35 percent. That would be the “the lowest share of the vote won by any single party majority government,” according to Prof. John Curtice, a polling expert.
Here’s what else to know:
Quick transition: Changes of government in Britain take hours, not months. Mr. Sunak was set to meet with the king at Buckingham Palace, followed closely behind by Mr. Starmer, who will then go to speak in Downing Street.
Labour’s makeover: For Mr. Starmer, a low-key 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.’s strong showing was a victory for Nigel Farage, the party’s leader and a veteran political disrupter who won a seat after failing in seven previous bids to get into Parliament. From his new perch, Mr. Farage could try to poach the remnants of the debilitated Conservatives.
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.
July 5, 2024, 5:55 a.m. ET
Stephen Castle
Reporting from London
Mr. Sunak spoke for about four minutes, ending his speech by wishing his successor, Keir Starmer, well. “In this job, his successes will be all our successes and I wish him and his family well,” Mr. Sunak said describing Mr. Starmer as a “decent public-spirited man who I respect.”
July 5, 2024, 5:46 a.m. ET
Stephen Castle
Reporting from London
Sunak said he would step down as Conservative Party leader but “not immediately,” only once arrangements to choose his successor are in place.
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U.K. election results
Key Players ›
Rishi Sunak
Prime minister and Conservative Party leader
Keir Starmer
Labour Party leader
Nigel Farage
Reform U.K. leader
Ed Davey
Liberal Democrats leader
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July 5, 2024, 5:45 a.m. ET
Stephen Castle
Reporting from London
Sunak accepted responsibility for the catastrophic defeat suffered by his Conservative Party, and apologized to the nation. “I have heard your anger,” he said.
July 5, 2024, 5:46 a.m. ET
Mark Landler
Reporting from London
While Sunak apologized for the loss, he made a robust case for his government’s achievements: cutting inflation, resolving a trade dispute with the European Union, and steadying Britain’s economy.
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July 5, 2024, 5:42 a.m. ET
Stephen Castle
Reporting from London
Rishi Sunak has begun speaking in Downing Street. For him this is the end of the road as prime minister, the last time he will address the nation before he travels the short distance to Buckingham Palace to tender his resignation to the king and leave the post he won less than two years ago. It’s also the end of 14 years of Conservative-led government, so a real political moment.
July 5, 2024, 5:32 a.m. ET
Megan Specia
Reporting from London
King Charles III has just arrived at Buckingham Palace, where he will meet with the departing Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, who is set to speak shortly. The king will then meet Keir Starmer, the Labour Party leader, and formally invite him to form a government.
July 5, 2024, 5:21 a.m. ET
Megan Specia
Reporting from London
Donald Trump congratulated his supporter Nigel Farage, the leader of the right-wing Reform U.K. party, on its “election success.” Writing on Truth Social, Trump said, “Nigel is a man who truly loves his Country!” The populist Farage had originally said he wouldn’t run in the election to focus on campaigning for Trump but abruptly changed his mind, and won a seat in Parliament after failing seven times before.
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July 5, 2024, 4:31 a.m. ET
Peter Robins
Reporting from London
Here’s what to expect as the U.K. changes prime ministers.
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When there is a clear opposition victory in Britain, the transition of power takes place with ruthless speed.
The Cabinet Manual, which sets out the official guidance on the process, says that “the incumbent prime minister and government will immediately resign and the sovereign will invite the leader of the party that has won the election to form a government.”
“Immediately,” in practice, means Friday morning. The result in Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s own constituency in northern England, where he held on to his seat, was announced shortly before 5 a.m. local time. He was on a flight back to London not long afterward.
Departing prime ministers traditionally pose with their families for a final set of photographs in Downing Street, their home and workplace while in office.
Mr. Sunak is then expected to give one last speech in Downing Street, around 10:30 a.m. local time (5:30 a.m. Eastern).
After that comes a short drive to Buckingham Palace, usually trailed by news helicopters, to resign in a private meeting with the monarch, now King Charles III.
The next prime minister, Keir Starmer, is likely to be close behind. In 2016, according to the House of Commons library, the car of the incoming leader, Theresa May, arrived at the palace 32 seconds after her predecessor, David Cameron, had left.
A new leader’s appointment also takes the form of a private meeting with the king, usually right after the resignation. It’s known as “kissing hands,” though it involves little ceremony and no kissing.
Expect a photographed handshake, followed by another prime ministerial speech in Downing Street, this one by Mr. Starmer. That’s expected around 12:20 p.m. local time.
Standard practice is for the new prime minister to move into No. 10 Downing Street more or less immediately, applauded by the permanent civil service staff on arrival.
Mr. Starmer will then appoint other ministers. There is not usually much suspense: British opposition parties maintain a “shadow cabinet” of candidates for government positions. Labour has told British news outlets that Mr. Starmer expects to announce his full cabinet by about 8 p.m. (3 p.m. Eastern).
More junior appointments are expected to follow on Saturday, with an afternoon pause while the England men’s soccer team plays Switzerland in the quarterfinals of the Euro 2024 tournament.
July 5, 2024, 4:20 a.m. ET
Eshe Nelson
Reporting from London
Here’s how Labour wants to change Britain’s economy.
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The Labour Party, which won Britain’s general election on Thursday, has made it one of its missions to revitalize Britain’s economy and to provide good jobs and productivity growth all over the country. With productivity and wages stalled for the past decade and a half, it’s a tall order.
Keir Starmer, the incoming prime minister, acknowledged early Friday morning that changing the country, including the economy, would require patience and determination.
His Labour Party has said it would take a different approach to the economy from the Conservative Party that was in power for 14 years by working more closely with businesses to increase investment while protecting workers’ rights. It has said its economic agenda will be focused on providing economic security.
The party has committed to showing restraint and has chosen to bind itself to strict fiscal rules to lower debt levels that will likely rule out major changes to taxes and spending.
Labour is expected to focus on other changes and on building institutions that it hopes will unlock billions in private investment to boost productivity and improve living standards. The party’s proposals include:
Changing Britain’s planning system to make it easier to build infrastructure and more than a million new homes. The party said it would also build new towns.
Create a national wealth fund to invest in green energy, build gigafactories (which build batteries for electric vehicles) and revive the steel industry.
Establish a publicly owned energy company, GB Energy, in an effort to reduce Britain’s exposure to international energy markets.
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July 5, 2024, 4:04 a.m. ET
Eshe Nelson
Reporting from London
Reform U.K., the upstart party led by Nigel Farage, won four seats. It's clear they won’t get the 13 seats that the exit poll projected. But they managed to grab 15 percent of the overall vote, a healthy showing and a sign of the fractured nature of the electorate.
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July 5, 2024, 3:44 a.m. ET
Eshe Nelson
Reporting from London
It was also a good night for the Green Party. They now have four seats in Parliament. Adrian Ramsay, the co-leader of the party, said that “we will be pushing the government to be bolder.” The party tends to be popular among young voters. While they won few seats, the garnered close to 7 percent of the vote. The Greens success is also part of a trend away from the two major parties.
July 5, 2024, 3:34 a.m. ET
Eshe Nelson
Reporting from London
Markets have just opened in London and the reaction is muted. The benchmark stock market is little changed. Same with the pound. Investors are more focused on what happens at the Bank of England. They are waiting to see if the central bank lowers interest rates this summer. But there’s still concern about inflation. It’s a reminder that the recent inflation shock is still being felt by voters.
July 5, 2024, 3:33 a.m. ET
Eshe Nelson
Reporting from London
Liz Truss, the 49-day prime minister, lost her parliamentary seat, alongside several other top Tories.
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Liz Truss, the former Conservative Party prime minister, lost her seat Friday morning. Following a chaotic 49-day premiership in 2022, which sent mortgage rates soaring, the pound tumbling and required an intervention by the central bank to calm markets, she has been ousted from Parliament.
Five years ago, she won a majority of more than 26,000. This time, she lost by 630 votes, a huge swing in support to the Labour Party.
She told the BBC that the reason the Conservatives lost was because “we haven’t delivered sufficiently on the policies people want,” such as keeping taxes low and reducing immigration. She said she agreed that she was part of the group in power that had failed to deliver these changes but laid the blame on the inheritance the party received in 2010, not herself.
“During our 14 years in power, unfortunately, we did not do enough to take on the legacy we’d been left,” she said.
But Ms. Truss is just one of many prominent Conservative lawmakers to lose their seats, including recent members of the cabinet. Others include:
Grant Shapps, the defense secretary, who over the Conservatives’ 14 years in power has also served as energy secretary, business secretary, home secretary and transport secretary.
Penny Mordaunt, the leader of the House of Commons, who has unsuccessfully run to lead the party.
Jacob Rees-Mogg, a prominent backer of Boris Johnson who served as business secretary under Ms. Truss.
Robert Buckland, a former justice secretary, who described the election results as “electoral Armageddon” for the Conservatives.
Gillian Keegan, the education secretary.
Lucy Frazer, the culture secretary.
Michelle Donelan, who held cabinet positions under Mr. Johnson, Ms. Truss and Rishi Sunak, most recently as a minister for science, innovation and technology.
The traditional strongholds the Conservative Party lost also included the seats once held by three other former prime ministers, Mr. Johnson, David Cameron and Theresa May.
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July 5, 2024, 3:17 a.m. ET
Megan Specia
Reporting from London
The election results are clear. Now comes the choreography of the change in government. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak will address the nation around 10:30 a.m., before heading to Buckingham Palace to offer his formal resignation to King Charles III. Keir Starmer, the Labour leader, will then have an audience with the king, before traveling back to N0. 10 Downing Street as the new prime minister. Starmer will speak at about 12:20 p.m.
July 5, 2024, 2:59 a.m. ET
Megan Specia
Reporting from London
Ian Paisley Jr. narrowly lost his seat to Jim Allister, who holds more extreme views on Northern Ireland's relationship with the United Kingdom. It is a sign of the deepening fractures in the unionist parties, which represent mostly Protestants and advocate for the region to remain part of the United Kingdom. Paisley’s father first won the same seat in 1970 so there has been an “Ian Paisley” representing the area of County Antrim for the last 54 years.
July 5, 2024, 2:35 a.m. ET
Megan Specia
Reporting from London
“We are seeing the working class get poorer and poorer and the rich get richer. I needed to do something that I could fully stand by, and hopefully it will make some difference as well.”
Iesha Duah Boateng, 18, a first-time voter, who cast her ballot for a Green Party candidate in the southern city of Portsmouth
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July 5, 2024, 1:52 a.m. ET
Eshe Nelson
Reporting from London
Liz Truss has lost her seat. The ousting of the former prime minister, who was in office for just 49 days in late 2022, is another sign of the scale of the Conservative Party’s defeat. Her plans for unfunded tax cuts and more borrowing roiled markets. The chaos ultimately forced her resignation and many in her party blamed her for ruining the party's reputation for good financial stewardship.
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July 5, 2024, 1:45 a.m. ET
Peter Robins
While the Labour Party is walking away with a strong majority of seats in Parliament, the overall share of votes its candidates captured, 35 percent according to BBC projections, signals a fractured electorate. It's the “the lowest share of the vote won by any single party majority government,” according to the polling expert Prof. John Curtice.
July 5, 2024, 1:43 a.m. ET
Mark Landler
Reporting from London
Labour rebuilds its ‘red wall,’ where Conservatives triumphed 5 years ago.
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The Conservatives’ reversal of fortune is apparent in the “red wall,” a set of coal and factory towns in the Midlands and north of England that long voted for the Labour Party but swung dramatically to the Conservatives in 2019.
Initial results indicate that many of these voters flocked back to Labour, whose party color is red, in this election. Labour was also helped by a strong performance for Reform U.K., the upstart right wing-party that cut into the Conservatives’ vote share and retained one seat in a Midlands former mining area.
In Bolsover, the Labour candidate, Natalie Fleet, defeated the Conservative incumbent who had swept into office in 2019, Mark Fletcher, winning just over 40 percent of the vote.
Ms. Fleet, 40, is a working-class product of the Midlands. A onetime single mother who had a child at 16, she ran for a seat in the neighboring district of Ashfield in 2019, falling victim to the Conservative rout. This time, Ms. Fleet said in brief comments to The New York Times before the election, the mood among voters was so much better that her youngest child, who is 10, joined her in knocking on doors.
When a Times journalist visited the area weeks before the election, it was clear that residents had yet to adjust to the changes wrought by immigration. In Shirebrook, a onetime mining town that is one of Bolsover’s poorer precincts, a sporting-goods company hired hundreds of workers from Eastern Europe to staff a large warehouse more than a decade ago, and memories of that linger.
“The Conservatives have policies that we agree with,” Alison Owen said, citing immigration. But Ms. Owen, 52, a restaurant supervisor who was playing bingo at a social club that serves former miners, said, “We’re Labour, through and through.”
July 5, 2024, 1:25 a.m. ET
Eshe Nelson
Reporting from London
Rishi Sunak is on his way back to London now. He’ll head to Buckingham Palace to formally offer his resignation.
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July 5, 2024, 1:15 a.m. ET
Stephen Castle
Reporting from London
Jeremy Hunt, the U.K.’s No. 2 most powerful official, narrowly keeps his seat.
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Britain’s outgoing chancellor of the Exchequer, Jeremy Hunt, narrowly held onto his seat in Parliament on Friday, in a testament to the extraordinarily difficult political environment facing the Conservative Party in Britain’s general election.
Mr. Hunt won 42.6 percent of the vote in Godalming and Ash, a new constituency created after local boundaries were redrawn, but that includes much of the area he has represented since 2005. The candidate placing second, Paul Follows of the centrist Liberal Democrats, took 41 percent.
With picture-postcard villages, country pubs and an unmistakable air of affluence, there are few greater strongholds for the Conservatives than Surrey, where voters chose Mr. Hunt as a lawmaker in five consecutive elections. But this campaign, he told The New York Times in an interview last month, “was definitely the toughest it’s ever been.”
The fact that the second most powerful man in the government saw himself as the underdog was testament to the scale of the threat facing the Conservatives.
Angry at economic stagnation, the impact of Brexit and a crisis in public services after years of government austerity, many traditional Tory voters were deserting the party in the prosperous English districts that have long provided its most reliable support, according to pre-election opinion polls.
In places like Chiddingfold — a leafy village 50 miles southwest of London where the local pub dates from the 14th century — the most potent election threat came not from Labour but from the centrist Liberal Democrats, or Lib Dems, whose poll ratings had been rising before the election. The party’s more moderate brand of politics is more palatable to conservative-leaning voters unwilling to switch to Labour.
July 5, 2024, 12:52 a.m. ET
Megan Specia
Reporting from London
Jeremy Hunt, a prominent Conservative lawmaker and the outgoing chancellor of the exchequer, managed to hold on to his seat after polls predicted his defeat.
July 5, 2024, 12:13 a.m. ET
Megan Specia
Reporting from London
“Change begins now,” a jubilant Keir Starmer, the Labour Party leader and soon-to-be prime minister, told supporters in central London, “Across our country, people will be waking up to the news that a weight has been lifted, a burden finally removed from the shoulders of this nation.”
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July 5, 2024, 12:46 a.m. ET
Eshe Nelson
Reporting from London
Starmer began his speech with a big grin but turned more serious as he talked about the need to “rebuild our country.” Echoing the speech given by Tony Blair in Labour’s 1997 landslide victory, he said, “We ran as a changed Labour party and we will govern as a changed Labour party.”
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July 4, 2024, 11:50 p.m. ET
Amelia Nierenberg
Reporting from Richmond, England
Rishi Sunak hangs on to his seat in Parliament.
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Rishi Sunak, the outgoing British prime minister, conceded his Conservatives party’s defeat early Friday, while holding onto his seat in Parliament.
Mr. Sunak took 47.5 percent of the vote in his constituency of Richmond and Northallerton in northern England. It was likely a relief for Mr. Sunak, who was reportedly worried about maintaining his once-safe seat in the days leading up to the vote.
But it was also a somber moment, as Mr. Sunak acknowledged in his acceptance speech for his seat that his party had lost. “The Labour Party has won this general election,” Mr. Sunak declared, adding that he had called Keir Starmer, the Labour leader and incoming prime minister to congratulate him.
Few in Richmond expected his ouster from Parliament. Mr. Sunak’s Conservative Party has long held sway in the rural Yorkshire area. If he had lost the race, he would have been the first sitting prime minister to lose his seat in Parliament.
“If they put a billy goat in for Richmond, Conservative, it would get in,” said Lawrence Hathaway, 94. “It’s always been Conservative.”
But this year Mr. Sunak — a multimillionaire whom opponents have painted as failing to understand the needs of ordinary people — was facing historic headwinds after 14 years of Conservative leadership. The party presided over a tumultuous exit from the European Union and Britain has wrestled with a cost of living crisis for years, with inflation reaching 11.1 percent in 2022 and only recently returning to target levels.
Opinion polls indicated that voters were also frustrated by the government’s mismanagement of the coronavirus pandemic, worried about their health-care system and exasperated by the leadership of Mr. Sunak’s predecessor, Liz Truss, who lasted only 45 days in office.
In Richmond, some felt that Mr. Sunak was being blamed for problems that started before his tenure and go much deeper than any one prime minister could handle.
“Most people here like Rishi Sunak,” said Barbara Richmond, 70, who has a holiday home nearby, though she does not vote in Richmond.
“For most Yorkshire people, it’s family first,” she said. “And he’s a family man.”
But many were fed up with scandals that have plagued the Conservative Party. There was “Partygate,” in which Boris Johnson and his staff at Downing Street broke the government’s own lockdown rules during the pandemic, helping trigger Mr. Johnson’s downfall. There was the economic chaos unleashed by Ms. Truss’s ill-advised tax cut plan. And in recent weeks, Conservative staff members were alleged to have made bets about the timing of the snap election.
“I’m very exasperated,” said Carol Sheard, a retired woman in her 70s, who votes in Mr. Sunak’s constituency. “It’s like a circus.”
Even some of Mr. Sunak’s supporters were lukewarm on him. On the campaign trail, the prime minister made a number of missteps, including leaving the D-Day commemorations early. Immensely wealthy, he often seemed unable to connect with ordinary voters.
“He’s so out of touch,” said John Morrison, 86. But he said he had still voted Conservative.
“Like a lot of people, I held my nose and voted for Rishi,” he said. “He’s the best of a bad lot.”
July 4, 2024, 11:49 p.m. ET
Megan Specia
Reporting from London
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has kept his seat in his Yorkshire constituency, but for the first time made clear his party’s national defeat after a long night where the Labour Party’s victory had come more clearly into focus.
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On this difficult night, I’d like to express my gratitude to the people of the Richmond and Northallerton constituency for your continued support. The Labour Party has won this general election. And I have called Sir Keir Starmer to congratulate him on his victory. Today, power will change hands in a peaceful and orderly manner, with good will on all sides. The British people have delivered a sobering verdict tonight. There is much to learn and reflect on. And I take responsibility for the loss. To the many good, hardworking conservative candidates who lost tonight, despite their tireless efforts, their local records of delivery and their dedication to their communities, I am sorry.
July 4, 2024, 11:51 p.m. ET
Megan Specia
Reporting from London
“The Labour Party has won this general election,” Sunak declared, speaking from his constituency. He said he called Keir Starmer, the Labour leader and incoming prime minister, to congratulate him. Sunak now plans to travel to London to deliver his formal resignation to King Charles III. “The British people have delivered a sobering verdict tonight,” Sunak said, adding he was sorry for his party’s performance.
July 4, 2024, 11:16 p.m. ET
Stephen Castle
Reporting from London
Penny Mordaunt, a senior cabinet minister who ran unsuccessfully to be leader of the Conservative Party, has lost her seat in Portsmouth North. Mordaunt played a ceremonial role in the coronation of King Charles III and her defeat removes one potential contender to take over from Rishi Sunak who is expected to stand aside as Conservative Party leader.
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July 4, 2024, 11:44 p.m. ET
Megan Specia
Reporting from London
Mordaunt's loss is a symbol of the broader challenge faced by Conservatives. Mordaunt was seen as popular among local voters but it wasn’t enough to overcome discontent with the party. Her seat had long been considered a bellwether for the overall outcome of the election, selecting the winning political party in every general election since 1974.
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July 4, 2024, 11:01 p.m. ET
Mark Landler
Reporting from London
Suella Braverman, an outspoken figure on the Conservative Party’s right and a potential future party leader, won her seat. But she issued a blunt apology and critique of what she said was the party’s failure to listen to its supporters. “I’m sorry my party didn’t listen to you,” Braverman said. “The Conservative Party has let you down.”
July 4, 2024, 10:46 p.m. ET
Stephen Castle
Reporting from London
Nigel Farage elected to Parliament for the first time.
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Nigel Farage, a supporter of former President Donald J. Trump, a force behind Brexit and Britain’s best known political disrupter, was elected to Parliament for the first time.
The new insurgent party he leads — Reform U.K. — was projected in the national exit poll to have captured four seats and a strong vote share, in an electoral system that typically punishes small parties. His party has been buoyed by an anti-immigration platform.
Mr. Farage won by a large margin in Clacton, a faded seaside town, where pre-election opinion surveys had suggested he had a strong chance of winning. He had tried and failed seven times before to be elected to Parliament.
“The establishment are terrified, the Conservatives are terrified,” Mr. Farage declared gleefully in a speech last month, referring to the governing party. Britain was “a broken nation,” he added, attacking targets ranging from asylum seekers to the BBC.
A polarizing, pugilistic figure and a highly skilled communicator, Mr. Farage, 60, helped the Conservatives to a landslide victory in the last general election by not running candidates from his Brexit Party in many key areas.
This election, his plan was different: to destroy the Tories by poaching much of their vote, then replace — or take over — the party’s remnants. Early in the campaign, after a journalist asked if he wanted to merge his upstart party with the Conservatives, he replied: “More like a takeover, dear boy.”
Reform U.K. has come under fierce criticism in recent weeks after a number of its candidates were found to have made inflammatory statements. One said that Britain should have remained neutral in the fight against the Nazis; another used antisemitic tropes by claiming that Jewish groups were “agitating for the mass import into England of Muslims.”
The party has blamed some of its problems on growing pains, has dropped some candidates and has threatened to take legal action against a private company it paid to vet candidates.
Last week, an undercover investigation by Britain’s Channel 4 News secretly filmed Reform campaigners in Clacton using racist and homophobic language, with one using a slur to describe the prime minister, Rishi Sunak.
But for two decades he has shaped Britain’s political conversation, driving the Brexit cause, outflanking the Tories and pushing them further right.
July 4, 2024, 10:40 p.m. ET
Joel Petterson
Reporting from London
Jeremy Corbyn wins his seat in fight against Labour, the party he once led.
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Jeremy Corbyn, an independent candidate running for Parliament, won his seat against a candidate from the Labour party, which he once led.
It was a vindication for Mr. Corbyn, who was running for the first time against the party he led from 2015 to 2020.
Mr. Corbyn, who has held the seat since 1983, was suspended as Labour leader and eventually purged by the party over his response to allegations of antisemitism during his tenure.
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For many in his constituency — an area of London with pockets of deep wealth alongside deprivation — the race meant choosing between a longstanding affinity for Labour and a politician who had represented the area for more than 40 years and was a deeply familiar presence in the community. For others, Mr. Corbyn’s handling of alleged antisemitism on the hard-left of the Labour Party while he was its leader was an enduring stain on his reputation.
Heading into Election Day, a poll by YouGov had declared the race to be a tossup, with the Labour candidate, Praful Nargund, holding a slight lead over Mr. Corbyn.
Paul Anthony Ogunwemimo, who said he had lived in the area for 14 years, called Mr. Corbyn “a very nice man.” But he had voted for the Labour candidate on Thursday, he said, largely to support Keir Starmer, who replaced Mr. Corbyn as the head of the party.
Hibbah Filli, who was born and raised in Mr. Corbyn’s constituency, said many of her friends and family members had voted for him in the past as “more of a Labour thing.” Voting for the first time on Thursday, she said she had backed Mr. Corbyn.
“I feel like he’s very dedicated to the community,” she said. “I feel like he’s done a good job for a long time, and I feel like we need a diverse range of voices in Parliament.”
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July 4, 2024, 10:34 p.m. ET
Stephen Castle
Reporting from London
Nigel Farage, leader of the Reform U.K. party, won his election in Clacton, a seaside area east of London. Farage had failed seven times before to win a seat in Parliament.
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I promise that I will do my absolute best as a member of parliament. I had 20 years as an M.E.P., but it’s not quite the same link or same responsibility with constituents. It’s not just disappointment with the Conservative Party. There is a massive gap on the center right of British politics, and my job is to fill it. My plan is to build a mass national movement over the course of the next few years, and hopefully, we be big enough to challenge the general election properly in 2029. We will now be targeting Labour votes. We’re coming for Labour. Be in no doubt about that. This is just the first step of something that is going to stun all of you. Thank you very much.
July 4, 2024, 10:38 p.m. ET
Stephen Castle
Reporting from London
“There is a massive gap on the center right of British politics,” said Farage, promising to create a “mass national movement” to challenge in the next general election in 2029.
July 4, 2024, 10:30 p.m. ET
Mark Landler
Reporting from London
Jeremy Corbyn, a former Labour Party leader who was purged from the party by Keir Starmer, won his North London seat, running as an independent. Corbyn’s victory showed his continuing popularity with his constituents, and is a blemish on an otherwise triumphant night for Starmer.
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July 4, 2024, 5:25 p.m. ET
Stephen Castle,Mark Landler and Megan Specia
Who is Keir Starmer, Britain’s next prime minister?
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Keir Starmer’s Labour Party Claims Victory in U.K. Election
Set to be the next prime minister of the U.K., Keir Starmer swore that his party would work to “restore Britain to the service of working people.”
Four and a half years of work changing the party. This is what it is for, a changed Labour Party, ready to serve our country, ready to restore Britain to the service of working people. And across our country, people will be waking up to the news relieved that a weight has been lifted, a burden finally removed from the shoulders of this great nation. Together, the values of this changed Labour Party are the guiding principle for a new government. Country first, party second. Today, we start the next chapter, begin the work of change, the mission of national renewal and start to rebuild our country. Thank you. Thank you.
Keir Starmer is set to become the next prime minister of Britain, after his Labour Party delivered a decisive win in the general election on Thursday.
“Across our country, people will be waking up to the news that a weight has been lifted, a burden finally removed from the shoulders of this nation,” a jubilant Mr. Starmer told supporters in central London in the early hours of Friday morning.
Using the analogy of a rising “sunlight of hope,” pale at first and getting stronger, he said the country had “an opportunity after 14 years to get its future back.”
Mr. Starmer will replace the outgoing prime minister, Rishi Sunak, who took office less than two years ago and called Mr. Starmer to congratulate him.
Mr. Starmer, a 61-year-old former human rights lawyer, has led a remarkable turnaround for the Labour Party, which just a few years ago suffered its worst election defeat since the 1930s. He has pulled the party to the political center while capitalizing on the failings of three Conservative prime ministers.
“He has been ferociously — some would say tediously — boring in his discipline,” Jill Rutter, a research fellow at the London research group U.K. in a Changing Europe, told The New York Times recently. “He’s not going to set hearts racing, but he does look relatively prime-ministerial.”
Mr. Starmer was raised in a left-wing, working-class family in Surrey, outside London. He was not close with his father; his mother, a nurse, suffered a debilitating illness that took her in and out of the hospital. Mr. Starmer became the first college graduate in his family, studying first at Leeds University, and then law at Oxford.
He was named after Keir Hardie, a Scottish trade unionist who was Labour’s first leader. As a young lawyer, he represented protesters accused of libel by McDonald’s. He later rose to become Britain’s chief prosecutor and was awarded a knighthood.
Elected to Parliament in 2015, he succeeded the left-wing Jeremy Corbyn as Labour leader in 2020 and began remaking the party. He dropped Mr. Corbyn’s proposal to nationalize Britain’s energy companies and promised not to raise taxes on working families. He committed to supporting Britain’s military, hoping to banish an anti-patriotic label that clung to Labour during the Corbyn era.
Mr. Starmer also rooted out the antisemitism that had contaminated the party’s ranks under Mr. Corbyn. Though he has not drawn a link between that and his personal life, his wife, Victoria Starmer, comes from a Jewish family in London.
In his early morning speech on Friday, he told supporters that it was the deep changes in the party that had allowed for the decisive victory, but he added that now, the hard work would begin.
“I don’t promise you it will be easy. Changing a country is not like flipping a switch,” he said. “We will have to get moving immediately.”
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