British Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s Conservative Party has won a thumping majority of seats in Britain’s Parliament — a decisive outcome to a Brexit-dominated election that should allow Johnson to fulfill his plan to take the UK out of the EU next month.
With 649 of the 650 results declared yesterday, the Conservatives had 364 seats and the main opposition Labour Party 203.
“We did it — we pulled it off, didn’t we?” Johnson told supporters. “We broke the gridlock, we ended the deadlock, we smashed the roadblock!”
Photo: EPA-EFE
The victory makes Johnson the most electorally successful Conservative leader since former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher.
It was a disaster for Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, who faced calls for his resignation even as the results rolled in.
US President Donald Trump congratulated Johnson on Twitter and said that “Britain and the United States will now be free to strike a massive new trade deal after Brexit.”
Corbyn called the result “very disappointing” for his party and said he would not lead Labour into another election, although he said he would lead a period of “reflection” rather than quit immediately.
Results poured in early yesterday showing a substantial shift in support to the Conservatives from Labour. In the previous election in 2017, the Conservatives won 318 seats and Labour 262.
The result this time delivered the biggest Tory majority since Thatcher’s 1980s heyday, and Labour’s lowest number of seats since 1935.
The Scottish National Party won 48 of Scotland’s 59 seats, up from 35 in 2017, a result that will embolden its demands for a new referendum on Scottish independence.
The Liberal Democrats had only 11 seats. Liberal Democrats leader Jo Swinson stepped down after losing in her own Scottish constituency.
The decisive Conservative showing vindicated Johnson’s decision to press for Thursday’s early election, which was held nearly two years ahead of schedule.
He said that if the Conservatives won a majority, he would get Parliament to ratify his Brexit divorce deal and take the UK out of the EU by the current Jan. 31 deadline.
Senior Johnson aide Dominic Cummings said that the opponents of the Conservatives were not listening to the public outside of London.
“After the shock of the referendum, MPs and journalists should have taken a deep breath and had a lot of self-reflection of why they misunderstood what was going on in the country, but instead a lot of people just doubled down on their own ideas,” Cummings told reporters. “That’s why something like this happens against expectations.”
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