By Chris Powers
(EurActiv) — Exit polls for the UK’s General Election have awarded a clear majority to the centre-left Labour Party, ushering in the removal of the right-wing Conservative Party, which has governed the country since 2010.
The exit poll awards Labour 410 seats, not dissimilar to the 418 seats (and 179 seat majority) achieved in 1997, when Tony Blair led them to victory.
The Conservatives under Rishi Sunak in contrast are projected to achieve a historic low in their seat allocation, with only 131 seats, less than half the 365 seats achieved in 2019. The party has been languishing behind Labour in opinion polling since as far back as 2022.
In the political centre-ground, the UK’s Liberal Democrats have made something of a comeback, predicted by the exit poll to gain 61 seats, almost identical to their performance in 2010 (62 seats), after which they formed a coalition government with the Conservatives, broke an election pledge on not raising university tuition fees, and were reduced to eight seats.
The Scottish National Party has scored 10 seats in the exit poll, lower than in previous elections where they had all but dominated in Scotland. Since former leader Nicola Sturgeon resigned as head of the party, they have struggled to regain political momentum.
On the far-right, Reform UK, the party of Nigel Farage, has made in-roads in the exit poll, predicted 13seats. Before the election was called, they had one MP who had defected from the ruling Conservatives. The party was for a time expected to do much better, and was even polling neck-and-neck with the ‘Tories’, at least in terms of the popular vote, however it is very hard for new parties to gain any traction in the UK’s first-past-the-post system and so this breakthrough has some political significance.
The Green party is projected to secure two seats for the first time, an increase from the one seat they have historically enjoyed in Brighton. 23 seats remain classified as ‘other’, according to the exit poll.