Britain’s Labour set for sweeping majority in U.K. election as Tories suffer historic defeat

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Britain’s Labour Party is on course for a landslide victory in the country’s general election, ending 14 years of Conservative rule and setting up leader Keir Starmer as the next prime minister.

Latest Updates: U.K.’s Labour Party wins a landslide victory in the British general election

Labour is forecast to win about 410 seats, according to early returns and an exit poll released just after polling stations closed at 10 p.m. local time on Thursday. That would be more than double the 202 seats the party won in the last election in 2019 and one of the largest Labour victories ever.

Final results are expected on Friday, but if the current trend continues, Mr. Starmer will be only the fourth Labour leader in the past 80 years to win an election.

“To everyone who has campaigned for Labour in this election, to everyone who voted for us and put their trust in our changed Labour Party – thank you,” Mr. Starmer posted on Twitter shortly after the poll results were released.

The Conservatives are forecast to fall to about 131 seats, down from 365 in 2019, according to the poll that is based on interviews with 20,000 voters after they cast their ballots. That result would be the worst showing in the party’s history.

Thursday was a “pretty devastating night for the Conservative Party,” said Steve Baker, an incumbent Tory MP and former cabinet minister.

Conservative Prime Minister Rishi Sunak is paying a steep price for gambling on an early election. Mr. Sunak hoped to catch his opponents off guard and take advantage of a drop in inflation and signs that the British economy was beginning to turn around.

The Conservative campaign never got traction. Mr. Sunak’s biggest challenge was trying to shake off the Conservatives’ legacy of scandals, missteps and internal feuding that led to three leadership changes in two years.

The election’s other big winners are projected to be the centrist Liberal Democrats, who are expected to take about 61 seats, up from 11 in 2019, and the upstart Reform UK led by Nigel Farage, which is forecast to win about 13 seats, far more than most pundits predicted.

Among the other losers is the Scottish National Party, which has been in power in Scotland for 17 years. The SNP is forecast to lose 38 seats and drop to just 10, with Labour claiming most of the victories.

The SNP has been mired in a scandal over party finances and its last leader, Humza Yousaf, was forced to resign in April. The result could raise questions about the future of Scottish independence, which the SNP has championed.

Opinion: What next for Britain and its ailing economy?

Mr. Sunak has only been Prime Minister for about 18 months but he was saddled with the fallout from his predecessor Liz Truss. She took over as party leader and prime minister from Boris Johnson, who had been ousted by Tory MPs in the summer of 2022 because of a series of scandals. Ms. Truss was pushed out by Tory MPs after just 49 days in office when her mini-budget caused havoc in financial markets by calling for steep tax cuts without a corresponding plan for how the breaks would be funded.

By then Mr. Starmer, who took over as party leader in 2020, had reshaped Labour into an acceptable alternative. He ruthlessly pulled the party toward the centre and sidelined his predecessor, Jeremy Corbyn, and Mr. Corbyn’s hard-left allies.

During the election campaign, Mr. Starmer largely played it safe by making few promises and presenting Labour as “pro-worker, pro-business.” He vowed not to raise taxes or introduce massive increases in public spending.

The new government will face several immediate challenges.

“They might get lucky with the economy,” said Paul Johnson, director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies, a London-based think tank. But if the economy doesn’t turn around sharply, Mr. Johnson said, Mr. Starmer’s government “is going to have to make really tough choices.”

Some of the immediate concerns will be National Health Service waiting times, public sector pay disputes, overcrowded prisons and funding for local authorities.

Mr. Starmer offered few details during the campaign on his priorities and he had difficulty responding to attacks from Mr. Sunak and others that Labour would have to raise taxes eventually. He has also promised to ease regulations to spur construction of houses, but that is almost certain to run up against local opposition.

He has also scrapped an earlier commitment to spend £28-billion ($48.6-billion) a year on environmental projects, arguing it was no longer feasible.

Mr. Starmer is banking on his government kickstarting the British economy. That, he hopes, will give him more room to boost spending and resolve longstanding problems with the NHS. While he has ruled out Britain rejoining the European Union, Mr. Starmer has said he will improve British ties with the EU and negotiate a new trade agreement.

However, Mr. Sunak and others have insisted that any discussions with Brussels will have to include the reintroduction of the free movement of EU citizens to Britain, which is an EU cornerstone and a major reason why a majority of Britons voted to leave the bloc in 2016. Mr. Starmer has said he won’t agree to free movement, but he has not explained how he would reach a new agreement.

In the end, though, Mr. Starmer’s key message that it was time for a change resonated with voters. And after he meets King Charles III on Friday, he will begin a new Labour era in government as prime minister.