Britons headed to the polls yesterday in a general election widely expected to emphatically return the opposition Labour Party to power and end nearly a decade-and-a-half of Conservative Party rule.
The country’s first national ballot since former British prime minister Boris Johnson won a landslide for the conservatives in 2019 follows Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s surprise call to hold it six months earlier than required.
His gamble looks set to backfire spectacularly, with polls throughout the six-week campaign — and for the past two years — pointing to a heavy defeat for his right-wing party.
Photo: EPA-EFE/ANDY RAIN
That would almost certainly put Labour Party leader Keir Starmer, 61, in Downing Street, as leader of the largest party in parliament.
Center-left Labour is projected to win its first general election since 2005 by historic proportions, with a flurry of election-eve polls all forecasting its biggest-ever victory.
However, Starmer was taking nothing for granted as he urged voters not to stay at home.
“Britain’s future is on the ballot,” he said. “But change will only happen if you vote for it.”
Voting began at 7am in more than 40,000 polling stations across the country, from church halls, community centers and schools to more unusual venues such as pubs and even a ship.
Polls suggest voters would punish the Conservatives after 14 years of often chaotic rule and could oust a string of government ministers, with talk that even Sunak himself might not be safe.
That would make him the first sitting prime minister not to retain his seat in a general election.
“I appreciate people have frustrations with our party,” he conceded on Wednesday. “But tomorrow’s vote ... is a vote about the future.”
Sunak, 44, is widely seen as having run a dismal campaign, with anger over his decision to leave D-Day commemorations in France early the standout moment.
In new blows on Wednesday, the Sun newspaper switched allegiance to Labour — a key endorsement given the tabloid has backed the winner at every election for several decades.
It follows the Financial Times, The Economist and the Sunday Times, as well as traditionally left-leaning papers the Guardian and the Daily Mirror, also endorsing the party.
Meanwhile, three large-scale surveys indicated Labour was on the brink of a record victory, with the Conservatives set for their worst-ever result and the centrist Liberal Democrats resurgent in third.
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