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In the end, time has caught up with the British Conservative Party, and voters on Thursday delivered a vengeance to the party’s inability to escape its own record.
Former premier Kwasi Kwateng said the slump was far worse than the chaos caused by his own disastrous 2022 “mini-budget” and had tarnished the party’s reputation on the economy. “It’s the whole party’s fault. It’s 14 years of fault.”
Chancellor Rishi Sunak has tried to claim this election is “about the future”, but the political voice currently in charge is Labour’s Sir Keir Starmer, who has promised a “decade of renewal” but the challenges are enormous.
At 10pm, Britain’s political landscape had changed beyond recognition. National exit polls showed a swath of Conservative blue on the electoral map, Labour’s red, a gold wedge of the Liberal Democrats in the south and a teal blotch of Reform Britain.
The 131 seats the exit polls predicted for the Conservatives was better than more dire predictions, but it would still be the party’s worst result in history, which one former cabinet minister summed up with a simple emoji of a man holding his head in his hands.
Mr Sunak, who conceded defeat at 4.40am when the results were counted in Richmond, said he had called Mr Starmer to congratulate him and said: “I take responsibility for the defeat.”
“It’s clearly a terrible night for the Conservative party,” said former minister Jacob Rees-Mogg, who later lost his seat and was one of several high-profile figures expelled. Labour’s landslide victory was due more to the collapse of the Conservative vote than any growing support for Starmer.
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With the Conservatives losing to Labour and the Liberal Democrats on the left and the Reform Party posing a new threat on the right, British politics have rarely been more unstable.
In the end, Sunak was unable to abandon a Conservative tradition that dates back to 2010, when newcomer David Cameron took office and led a coalition government with the Liberal Democrats.
Since then, the UK has faced austerity, Brexit, Covid-19, soaring energy prices, Liz Truss’s disastrous term as Prime Minister, Boris Johnson being ousted from his position after lying to Parliament, record immigration, tax burdens reaching their highest level in 70 years and NHS waiting lists swelling to 7.5 million people.
Starmer ran on a very simple campaign slogan – “change” – and when the political tide shifts in Britain’s single-seat constituency system, it will shift decisively. Starmer will enter Downing Street with a majority comparable to the one Sir Tony Blair won in 1997.
Sunak has failed to find a way to sustain the Conservative electoral coalition that Johnson formed in 2019, backed by the public’s desire to “get Brexit done” and an inept left-wing Labour leader in Jeremy Corbyn.
The new electoral map confirms the complete political failure of the Conservative pledge to reduce regional differences in the UK by “equalising” the north of England, handing the “Red Wall” back to Labour.
Nigel Farage’s Reform UK has emerged as the main challenger in many of the conservative working-class northern towns won by Johnson, a trend that was made clear in the first results of the night, taken in south Sunderland just after 11pm.
Conservative lawmakers who survive this upheaval will have to decide whether to steer the party in a Faragist right-wing direction and confront the Reform Party on issues like immigration, or stick to the center.
Reform UK co-vice chief executive Ben Habib called the expected outcome a “bridgehead” for the party, which has vowed to replace the Conservatives as the main right-wing party at the next general election, by 2029.
Mr Sunak tried to thwart the Reform Party with plans to send refugees to Rwanda and promises to restore National Service, but last night’s results showed his efforts only succeeded in alienating Conservative supporters in wealthy, professional areas of the south of England.
Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey was delighted to predict that his party could end up winning 61 seats, mainly in Conservative “blue wall” constituencies in the south of England – close to the record 62 won by Charles Kennedy in 2005 after the Iraq war.
Some constituencies home to City traders, senior civil servants, top lawyers and leading academics are now virtually no-go zones for the Conservatives, and in London, Britain’s capital and most prosperous city, the Conservatives are facing near-annihilation.
The electoral landscape also changed decisively in Scotland, with exit polls suggesting the SNP could win just 10 seats, dashing hopes of a second bid for independence.
On Friday, Mr Sunak will leave Downing Street for the last time, still trapped by the past, while Mr Starmer will arrive at No 10 Downing Street hoping that the future may be less bleak but knowing the challenges ahead are immense.
A majority of around 170 votes would give Labour great political leeway in Westminster, but it is expected to leave Labour below the 40% that Jeremy Corbyn won in 2017. The British public is clearly skeptical, and right-wing populism is on the rise.
With Britain in a state of sluggish growth, public services collapsing and trade unions demanding big pay rises and higher taxes, Starmer may realise that his toughest times are yet to come.
