What happened, what happens next

The Labor Party won a landslide victory in the British general election, sweeping hundreds of seats across the country and ending 14 years of Conservative rule.

Sir Keir Starmer will be appointed Prime Minister later on Friday, ending an era in which five different Conservative leaders have ruled the country.

Outgoing Prime Minister Rishi Sunak acknowledged Labour’s victory at around 04:40am and said he had called Sir Keir to congratulate him.

In a victory speech minutes later, the Labor leader promised “national renewal” and said he would put “country first and party second”.

“We have been given a mandate to reignite the war,” he told Labor activists in his victory speech. “Our task is nothing less than renewing the ideas that bring this country together.”

The result marked a stunning reversal from the 2019 election, when Labor, led by veteran left-wing politician Jeremy Corbyn, suffered its worst electoral defeat in almost a century.

On the other hand, former Conservative minister Robert Buckland, who lost his seat, described it as “election apocalypse“For the Conservative Party.

With what is expected to be the party’s worst result in almost 200 years, a fight over its future direction is likely to unfold in the coming days.

It’s been a long night and we have more to do. Here’s what’s happening, and what it all means.

There are 650 members of the British House of Commons. Each of their “seats” represents a constituency or region somewhere in the country.

So far, Labor has won 410 seats, while the Conservatives have fallen to just 119 seats and the centrist Lib Dems hold 71 seats.

Labor is expected to win 170 seats in the House of Commons, a huge number but still short of the 179 seats Tony Blair’s Labor Party won at the 1997 general election.

But looking more broadly, the Conservatives won the 2019 general election under Boris Johnson – seen as a very strong performance – and secured an 80-seat majority.

As a reminder: If one party has a majority, it means it does not need to rely on other parties to pass laws. The more people there are, the easier it is.

When the constituency results were announced live on television – with all the candidates lined up side by side on stage – there were some big moments.

Perhaps most notably s failure Liz Truss. The former prime minister served only 49 days in term No. 10 before being ousted by his party. She narrowly lost to Labor in the Norfolk South West constituency, which previously held a majority of 24,180.

Jacob Rees-MoggThe former Tory business secretary and leading Brexiteer figure is one of the most prominent figures to suffer defeat. He lost the seats of Somerset East and Harnham to Labour.

He told the BBC he could not blame the defeat “on anyone but me” but he saw a “glimmer of hope” in the fact that the Conservatives would be “at least the official opposition” – referring to Worry they won’t even have that.

Grant ShappsThe Defense Secretary appeared distraught after losing his seat in southern England.

leader of the house of representatives Penny MordauntShe also lost her seat after running against Rishi Sunak for party leadership before he became chancellor.

Jeremy HunterAs chancellor of the exchequer – the UK equivalent of finance minister – he retained his seat but with a significantly reduced majority.

Mr Sunak also won the Yorkshire seat with an absolute majority of around 12,000 but acknowledged and confirmed in his acceptance speech that his party had lost the election.

But hang in there, we’re still waiting on the results of some other big games.

British politics moves very quickly – the time between the election results and the arrival of a new prime minister is short.

Rishi Sunak will leave 10 Downing Street (the UK’s equivalent of the White House) within 24 hours, with Sir Keir Starmer taking up his post quickly thereafter.

But there is a process. Mr Sunak will submit his resignation to the king, while Sir Keir will be formally invited by the monarch to form the next government at a meeting usually held at Buckingham Palace.

Afterwards, he is expected to invite senior Labor MPs to Downing Street and appoint them to the new cabinet.

He is relatively new to politics.

Sir Keir began his career as a solicitor in the 1990s and was appointed as the Director of Public Prosecutions, the most senior criminal prosecutor in England and Wales, in 2008.

He was first elected in the north London constituency of Holborn and St Pancras in 2015 and took over the Labor leadership after a poor showing at the 2019 general election, promising to usher in a “new era” after Jeremy Corbyn’s left-wing leadership. New Era”.

Sir Keir, who was re-elected in the same constituency on Thursday, said in his victory speech that people were “ready for change” and pledged to “end performance politics”.

“Change starts here, because this is your democracy, your community, your future,” he said. “You’ve voted. Now it’s time for us to deliver on our promise.”

You can read Sir Keir’s Complete profile here.

The rebel party in this election is Reform UK, the right-wing successor to the Brexit Party and UK Independence Party.

Party leader Nigel Farage finally won a seat at his eighth attempt, but the party’s initial projection of 13 seats ended up falling short of four. That’s still better than UKIP and the Brexit Party, something Mr Farage has been celebrating.

The party’s vote share looks to be around 14%.

Reform sparked controversy during the campaign due to offensive rhetoric from some candidates and activists.

Mr Farage will join former Conservative Party deputy leader Lee Anderson, reform founder Richard Tice and Rupert Lowe in the House of Commons.