Starmer's Labour heads for big win, election exit poll says

Keir Starmer’s Labour Party is projected to win the U.K. general election with a huge majority, a result that — if it plays out when the votes have been counted — will go down as a momentous occasion in British political history as Rishi Sunak’s governing Conservatives imploded.

The official election exit poll predicted Labour will win 410 of the 650 seats in the House of Commons, the most since Tony Blair’s 1997 landslide, with a projected majority of 170. Sunak’s Tories are projected to be reduced to 131 seats, which would be their worst ever performance and would likely see some of the party’s biggest names voted out. The Liberal Democrats are on course for 61, with Nigel Farage’s Reform U.K. on 13.

If the exit poll proves correct, Starmer is hours away from replacing Sunak as British premier, completing a remarkable turnaround since his left-wing predecessor Jeremy Corbyn led Labour to its worst performance in more than eight decades just five years ago. When Starmer took over in 2020, it was assumed the Boris Johnson-led Tories would keep Labour out of power for at least another decade.

But Johnson’s administration collapsed under the weight of chaos and scandal, not least when he became the first sitting premier to be fined by the police over a rule-breaking party in Downing Street during the pandemic. His successor, Liz Truss, lasted 49 days — the shortest tenure in history but long enough to trigger a financial market meltdown. Since taking over in October 2022, Sunak — who had also been fined in the ‘Partygate’ scandal — failed to shake the sense that Britons had simply had enough.

Against that backdrop, Starmer tacked to the political center ground, expunged Corbynism, and presented Labour as the party of economic stability. Rachel Reeves, a former Bank of England economist who is set to be the U.K.’s first female Chancellor of the Exchequer, has been central to Labour’s pitch for business to get behind Labour.

Britain needs a “decade of national renewal,” Starmer has said repeatedly through Labour’s largely error-free campaign.

The pound was little changed against both the dollar and the euro in the immediate aftermath of the exit poll. Markets have been sanguine in the face of a projected Labour victory, sending gauges of volatility to near multi-year lows across currency and bond markets.

“The numbers are encouraging, but the exit poll is a poll,” Labour’s Deputy leader Angela Rayner said on the BBC. “The nine years I’ve been an MP, I’ve not been able to effect change because we’ve been in opposition, so the ability to and opportunity to serve the British people and bring about that change that they’re desperate for would be an absolute privilege.”

Labour went into election day with a 20-point lead in Bloomberg’s U.K. poll of polls, a rolling 14-day average using data from 11 polling companies. The gap to the Tories has barely narrowed since Sunak caught his own party by surprise when he called a snap summer vote rather than wait until the autumn.

The exit poll is different, based on a survey of tens of thousands of people after they have cast their ballots. That’s generally made it accurate, predicting 368 seats for the Tories in 2019 against the 365 they ultimately won. The 650 House of Commons seats will be declared overnight.

For Starmer and Labour, the result looks set to end a miserable 14 years on the political sidelines as the Conservative government imposed years of austerity and led the U.K. out of the European Union, triggering political turmoil. The pressure on Starmer to follow up — as Blair did — with future wins is immense.

Yet there’s unlikely to be the same Cool Britannia-driven euphoria that greeted Blair in 1997. Brexit is still taking a toll on the U.K. economy, and Britons have endured a historic squeeze on living standards in the aftermath of the pandemic and Russia’s war in Ukraine.

Starmer has said there’s “no magic wand” for a quick fix. But five years after the Corbyn-led nadir, it’s still the case that Labour is in a position almost nobody thought was possible, albeit aided by an ailing Conservative Party.

For Sunak, the exit poll points to a defeat that has been on the cards for months. He has said he will stay on as an MP even if he’s removed or steps down as Tory leader — though some polls predict he may not keep his seat. His Tory party, meanwhile, faces a fractious battle over how to recover.

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(With assistance from Isabella Ward and Greg Ritchie.)