U.K. wakes up to new government as Labour Party look set to win election: Follow live

In the United States, election night is followed by a monthslong transition period before the new administration takes office. In Britain, by contrast, new leaders endure a sleepless, 24-hour maelstrom that takes them straight from the campaign trail to No. 10 Downing St., the prime minister’s official residence and office.

With the election result increasingly clear, Prime Minister-elect Keir Starmer must travel to Buckingham Palace to be formally appointed by King Charles III, a ceremonial ritual in Britain’s constitutional democracy. It will be the king’s first post-election appointment, but he has some way to go before he equals the 15 prime ministers who served under his mother, the late Queen Elizabeth II.

The new prime minister then travels to Downing Street, which will have been swiftly vacated by his predecessor. There he will address the nation outside its famous black door, then be applauded inside by civil servants. Then come the security briefings — including on protocols in case of nuclear attack — calls to world leaders, and finally the small matter of running the country.

Former Prime Minister Liz Truss has lost her South West Norfolk seat to Labour by just over 600 votes.

“The issue we faced as conservatives is we haven’t delivered sufficiently on the policies people want,” Truss told the BBC. “And that means keeping taxes low… I was part of that.”

Truss was leader of the Conservative Party for just 44 days in 2022, during which time she announced a radical new economic agenda of tax cuts and spending that crashed Britain’s economy before she resigned.

She has since styled herself as a populist who took on the “deep state” during her time in office and she also appeared alongside Nigel Farage at the Conservative Political Action Conference in the United States.

The Labour Party is ready to “restore Britain to the service of working people,” Starmer said after the election was called for the center-left party.

The victory by Labour, which easily secured the 326 seats necessary for a parliamentary majority, ends 14 years of rule by the Conservative Party, with Starmer set to succeed Sunak as prime minister.     

“We did it,” Starmer told a cheering crowd in an early-morning speech in central London. “You voted for it and now it has arrived. Change begins now.”

“A weight has been lifted, a burden finally removed from the shoulders of this great nation, and now we can look forward again,” he said.

A grave-looking Sunak retained his seat but acknowledged it had been a “difficult night” as the opposition Labour Party looked set to win in a landslide.

“The Labour Party has won this election,” Sunak said after the results in his Yorkshire constituency of Richmond and Northallerton were announced. “I have called Starmer to congratulate him.”

“I take responsibility for the loss,” he added, apologizing to defeated Conservative candidates.

After having declared the election earlier than expected and presided over a campaign beset by scandals, PR failures and allegations of insider betting, Sunak may have led the Conservatives to their worst defeat ever, according to exit polls.

LONDON — Britain woke up today to the scene of a political earthquake. The opposition Labour Party, after 14 years in the political wilderness, has handed a brutal defeat to the ruling Conservatives.

Party leader Keir Starmer is now certain to become prime minister in the coming hours, replacing his Conservative Party counterpart, Rishi Sunak, who has presided over one of the worst electoral losses in British political history.

“We did it,” Starmer told a cheering crowd in central London. “You voted for it and now it has arrived. Change begins now.”

“A burden finally removed from the shoulders of this great nation,” he said. Now the country can “move forward again.”

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