Kemi Badenoch
| Photo Credit: Reuters

London

Six British lawmakers have announced that they are running to lead the Conservative Party in a contest that will decide whether the Opposition party tacks to the right or steers toward the political centre ground.

Contenders include former Foreign Secretary James Cleverly and lawmaker Tom Tugendhat from the party’s centrist grouping. Former Home Secretary Priti Patel and ex-Business Secretary Kemi Badenoch have support from the right of the party.

Former Immigration Minister Robert Jenrick and veteran lawmaker Mel Stride also have secured the required support of 10 Conservative lawmakers before the deadline on Monday. Ms. Badenoch, who came third in the party’s last leadership election in 2022, was the early favourite. The Nigeria-raised lawmaker used language reminiscent of Conservative icon Margaret Thatcher, saying the party should lead “a renewal for capitalism” built around a smaller state.”

In the wake of the party’s devastating election defeat this month, which saw it lose votes to parties on both right and left, Conservatives are split between moderates who want to try to win back centrist voters and hard-liners who want tougher migration and law and order policies to regain political territory lost to the Reform U.K. party led by anti-immigration firebrand Nigel Farage.

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and his wife Victoria Starmer stand outside Downing Street 10, following the results of the election, in London, Britain, July 5, 2024.
| Photo Credit: Reuters

Several world leaders, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi, on Friday congratulated Britain’s new Prime Minister Keir Starmer after his Labour Party stormed to power after 14 years.

The Labour Party led by Mr. Starmer won the U.K. general election in a landslide. He became the new Prime Minister after meeting King Charles III who asked him to form the next government. The Conservative Party led by Rishi Sunak lost 250 seats, its worst-ever defeat.

Mr. Modi offered “heartiest congratulations and best wishes” to Mr. Starmer on his remarkable victory.

“I look forward to our positive and constructive collaboration to further strengthen the India-U.K. Comprehensive Strategic Partnership in all areas, fostering mutual growth and prosperity,” Mr. Modi said.

Mr. Modi also thanked outgoing PM Sunak for his “admirable leadership of the U.K.”.

“Thank you @RishiSunak for your admirable leadership of the U.K., and your active contribution to deepen the ties between India and the U.K. during your term in office. Best wishes to you and your family for the future,” Mr. Modi said.

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese also congratulated Mr. Starmer on his “resounding” election victory. Albanese added that he was looking forward to working constructively with the incoming Labour government.

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni congratulated Mr. Starmer on his election victory. “The state of relations between Italy and the United Kingdom is excellent and I am sure that we will continue to cultivate a strong and reliable collaborative relationship between our great Nations, in the interests of our citizens and in line with common strategic objectives,” she posted on X.

Prime Minister of Norway Jonas Gahr Støre offered his congratulations to Mr. Starmer and the Labour Party on the “historic election win”. “I’m looking forward to continuing our close cooperation between the UK and Norway, including on the energy transition, our common security and trade,” he said further.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau posted a photo of himself and Mr. Starmer on X as he congratulated him on a “historic” election victory. “Lots of work ahead to build a more progressive, fair future for people on both sides of the Atlantic. Let’s get to it, my friend,” Mr. Trudeau wrote.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy congratulated Mr. Starmer and the Labour Party in a post on X.

“Ukraine and the United Kingdom have been and will continue to be reliable allies through thick and thin. We will continue to defend and advance our common values of life, freedom, and a rules-based international order,” he said.

“I wish the incoming government every success both in domestic affairs and in solidifying the U.K.’s leadership on the world stage. I look forward to working closely together on strengthening the Ukraine-U.K. partnership and restoring international peace and security,” Mr. Zelenskyy added.

Nepal Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal ‘Prachanda’, in a congratulatory message to Mr. Stramer, said that he looked forward to working with the new government of the U.K. to strengthen long-standing Nepal-U.K. relations.

Scottish First Minister John Swinney speaks to the media at The Port of Leith Distillery, following the landslide General Election victory for the Labour Party, in Edinburgh, Scotland, Friday, July 5, 2024.
| Photo Credit: AP

The pro-separatist Scottish National Party was virtually obliterated at the U.K. General Election on July 5, suffering a devastating blow to its withering independence movement.

Keir Starmer’s Labour party overturned more than a decade of SNP domination by storming to a majority of Scotland’s 57 seats, as it rode to power in Westminster.

The SNP lost dozens of lawmakers as it recorded its worst result in a British general election since 2010, with leader John Swinney lamenting a “very, very difficult and damaging” night for his party.

Mr. Swinney had targeted winning 29 seats as a mandate for reopening negotiations with the British government for another independence referendum, but it returned only nine MPs, with one result still to declare.

That was down from the 48 it won at the last election in 2019.

Labour returned just one Scottish Labour MP last time round but sealed its comeback in its former heartland by sweeping every Glasgow seat as well as numerous others in Scotland’s central belt.

Also Read | U.K. General Election 2024 highlights

The crushing loss for the SNP means it relinquished its position as Britain’s third-biggest party, which brings a high-profile slot during the weekly Prime Minister’s Questions session in parliament.

It will also lose out on public funding and key positions on parliamentary select committees.

“There will have to be a lot of soul-searching as a party as a consequence of these results that have come in tonight,” SNP leader John Swinney admitted to the BBC.

Finance scandal

The SNP has dominated in Scotland in the last three UK elections, peaking with the 2015 vote when it won 56 seats out of 59 seats. In 2010, it got only six seats.

But the party has been under pressure from the resurgence of Labour in its former fiefdom north of the English border, as it rides a wave of displeasure against the Tories nationwide.

The SNP has been in turmoil for months as voters tire of its 17 years in charge of the devolved Scottish parliament in Edinburgh.

Critics have also accused it of focusing on independence at the expense of key issues such as the cost-of-living crisis, education and health.

Support for the SNP has also slumped amid a finances scandal that saw former SNPleaser Nicola Sturgeon’s husband, Peter Murrell, charged with embezzlement. Murrell is the party’s former chief executive.

Ms. Sturgeon herself was arrested, but released without charge.

Mr. Swinney only took charge in May following the resignation of Humza Yousaf after the collapse of the SNP’s power-sharing deal with the Scottish Greens in Edinburgh.

Mr. Yousaf was in power for just over a year.

The result leaves the SNP with a massive fight on its hands to remain in control of the devolved government in Edinburgh when voters elect a new Scottish parliament in 2026.

“The Scottish National Party needs to be healed and it needs to heal its relationship with the people of Scotland, and I am absolutely committed to doing that,” said Swinney.

Labour and the Conservatives insist independence was dealt with at the 2014 referendum when 55 percent of voters in Scotland opted to remain part of the UK.

Despite the SNP’s slump, the number of Scots favouring independence has held at around 40 percent, according to surveys, providing the SNP with some solace.

Britain’s outgoing Conservative Party Prime Minister Rishi Sunak looks down as he makes a short speech outside 10 Downing Street before going to see King Charles III to tender his resignation in London, Friday, July 5, 2024.
| Photo Credit: AP

Rishi Sunak’s campaign to remain Britain’s Prime Minister showed a lack of political touch.

The Conservative Party’s problems were grave before Friday’s resounding election defeat but missteps by Britain’s richest Prime Minister contributed to its defeat.

Predecessors such as Tony Blair and Boris Johnson were more politically astute and able to connect with voters. As for Mr. Sunak, he didn’t have to call the election until Jan. 2025. He defied political advice by doing so in May — with Conservative support dwindling steadily amid an economic slump, ethics scandals and a revolving door of leaders over the last two years — and announced the July 4 date in the pouring rain.

Also Read | U.K. General Election 2024 highlights

What’s more, the Conservative Party didn’t appear ready for the campaign compared with Labour, and voters haven’t really felt the improvement in Britain’s economy yet.

“I have heard your anger, your disappointment, and I take responsibility for this loss,” Mr. Sunak said in his final speech as Prime Minister outside the residence at 10 Downing St.

Arguably, Mr. Sunak’s biggest blunder — one that prompted him to apologize and which many analysts think was the final death knell of the Conservative Party’s campaign — was his decision to leave early from the 80-year D-day commemorations in northern France on June 6.

Critics said the decision to skip the international event that closed the commemorations showed disrespect to the veterans and diminished the U.K.’s international standing. Other world leaders including President Joe Biden, French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelenskyy all were present. As was Keir Starmer, the U.K.’s new Prime Minister.

Born in 1980 in Southampton on England’s south coast to parents of Indian descent, Mr. Sunak became Britain’s first leader of color and the first Hindu to become Prime Minister. At 42, he was Britain’s youngest leader for more than 200 years.

A former hedge fund manager at Goldman Sachs who married into a billionaire Indian family, Mr. Sunak rose rapidly within Conservative ranks. Now 44, he become Treasury chief on the eve of the coronavirus pandemic. Within weeks, he had to unveil the biggest economic support package of any Chancellor of the Exchequer outside wartime, a package that many saw as saving millions of jobs.

Long a low-tax, small-state politician despite the high-spending nature of that package, Sunak had a record of idolizing former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. Smooth, confident and at ease with the march of modern technology, Mr. Sunak was dubbed “Dishy Rishi” and quickly became one of the most trusted and popular faces within Johnson’s administration during the rigors of the pandemic.

Mr. Johnson was forced to quit in the summer of 2022 after being adjudged to have lied to Parliament over breaches of coronavirus lockdowns at his offices in Downing Street. As if that wasn’t bad enough, trust in the Conservatives tanked further when his successor Liz Truss backed a package of unfunded tax cuts that roiled financial markets and sent borrowing costs surging, particularly for homeowners already struggling with the most acute of cost of living crisis in decades. Her premiership was the shortest in the history of the U.K.

When Mr. Sunak replaced Ms. Truss, he pitched himself as a stable pair of hands. He constantly reminded voters that he had warned Conservative Party members about the recklessness of Ms. Truss’s economic plan when he challenged her to succeed Mr. Johnson. The day he replaced Truss after her traumatic 49-day premiership in Oct. 2022, the Conservatives were trailing Labour by around 30 percentage points.

As Treasury chief, Mr. Sunak was lauded for rolling out his COVID-19 job retention package that arguably saved millions of jobs. But that came at a cost, bringing the country’s tax burden to its highest level since the 1940s.

In his 21 months as Prime Minister, Mr. Sunak struggled to keep a lid on bitter divisions within his Conservative Party. One side wanted him to be much tougher on immigration and bolder in cutting taxes, while another urged him to move more to the center of politics, the space where, historically, British elections are won.

In his concession speech, Mr. Sunak said he would serve a full term in parliament until 2029, and that he would stay on as leader until the Conservative Party has elected a successor.

“It is important that, after 14 years in government, the Conservative Party rebuilds, but also that it takes up its crucial role in opposition professionally and effectively,” he said,

Many think he may be tempted to return to the U.S. in the years to come, perhaps to pursue his interest in artificial technology.

After his school years at Winchester College, one of Britain’s most expensive boarding schools, Mr. Sunak went to Oxford University to study politics, philosophy and economics — the degree of choice for future Prime Ministers. He then got an MBA at Stanford University, which proved to be a launchpad for his subsequent career as a hedge fund manager at Goldman Sachs in the U.S.

There, he met his wife, Akshata Murty, the daughter of the billionaire founder of Indian tech giant Infosys. They have two daughters. The couple are the wealthiest inhabitants yet of No. 10 Downing Street, according to the Sunday Times’ 2024 Rich List, with an estimated fortune of 651 million pounds ($815 million). They’re even richer than King Charles III, a level of wealth that many said left him out of touch with the daily problems of most people.

With his fortune secure, Mr. Sunak was elected to Parliament for the safe Tory seat of Richmond in Yorkshire in 2015. In Britain’s 2016 Brexit referendum, he supported leaving the European Union, a “leave” that came unexpectedly and that many Britons today regret.

Nigel Farage, leader of the right-wing Reform U.K. party, won a seat in the British parliament for the first time in the seaside English town of Clacton-on-Sea, as voters deserted Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s Conservative Party.

Mr. Farage, whose career of anti-immigration, pro-Brexit campaigning has made him one of Britain’s most recognisable and divisive political figures, comfortably beat the Conservative candidate Giles Watling who had previously held the seat.

His surprise entry into the election a month ago, having initially ruled out standing, boosted support for Reform UK across the country. That helped scupper Mr. Sunak’s hopes of closing the gap on the centre-left Labour Party, which is on course for a huge national victory. – Reuters

Britain’s opposition Labour Party leader Keir Starmer and his wife Victoria Starmer in London, Britain, July 5 2024.
| Photo Credit: Reuters

Britain’s main opposition Labour party looks set for a landslide election win, exit polls indicated, with Keir Starmer replacing Rishi Sunak as prime minister, ending 14 years of Conservative rule.

Also Read: U.K. General Election 2024 updates

The survey for U.K. broadcasters suggested centre-left Labour would win 410 seats in the 650-seat House of Commons, putting it back in power for the first time since 2010, with a 170-seat majority.

Mr. Sunak’s Tories would only get 131 – a record low – with the right-wing vote apparently spliced by Nigel Farage’s anti-immigration Reform UK party, which could bag 13 seats.

In another boost for the centrists, the smaller opposition Liberal Democrats would get 61 seats, ousting the Scottish National Party on 10 as the third biggest party.

Election workers at Titanic Exhibition Centre, in Belfast, Northen Ireland, during the count for the 2024 General Election, Thursday, July 4, 2024. Britain’s Labour Party was headed for a huge majority in Britain’s election on Thursday, an exit poll suggested. (Liam McBurney/PA via AP)
| Photo Credit: AP

Britain’s Labour Party headed for a landslide victory in a parliamentary election on Thursday, an exit poll suggested, as voters punished the governing Conservatives after 14 years of economic and political upheaval.

The poll released moments after voting closed indicated that center-left Labour’s leader Keir Starmer will be the country’s next prime minister. He will face a jaded electorate impatient for change against a gloomy backdrop of economic malaise, mounting distrust in institutions and a fraying social fabric.

Also Read : U.K. General Election 2024: Labour wins first electoral seat to declare, Reform U.K. in second

The historic defeat for the Conservatives leaves the party depleted and in disarray and will likely spark a contest to replace Prime Minister Rishi Sunak as leader.

“Nothing has gone well in the last 14 years,” said London voter James Erskine, who was optimistic for change in the hours before polls closed. “I just see this as the potential for a seismic shift, and that’s what I’m hoping for.”

While the suggested result appears to buck recent rightward electoral shifts in Europe, including in France and Italy, many of those same populist undercurrents flow in Britain. Reform UK leader Nigel Farage has roiled the race with his party’s anti-immigrant “take our country back” sentiment and undercut support for the Conservatives, who already faced dismal prospects.

Labour is on course to win about 410 seats in the 650-seat House of Commons and the Conservatives 131, according to the exit poll. That would be the fewest number of seats for the Tories in their nearly two-century history and would leave the party in disarray.

Former Conservative leader William Hague said the poll indicated “a catastrophic result in historic terms for the Conservative Party.”

Still, Labour politicians, inured to years of disappointment, were cautious, with full results still hours off.

“The exit poll is encouraging, but obviously we don’t have any of the results yet,” deputy leader Angela Rayner told Sky News.

In a sign of the volatile public mood and anger at the system, some smaller parties appeared to have done well, including the centrist Liberal Democrats and Farage’s Reform UK.

The poll is conducted by pollster Ipsos and asks people at scores of polling stations to fill out a replica ballot showing how they have voted. It usually provides a reliable though not exact projection of the final result.

Britain has experienced a run of turbulent years — some of it of the Conservatives’ own making and some of it not — that has left many voters pessimistic about their country’s future. The U.K.’s exit from the European Union followed by the COVID-19 pandemic and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine battered the economy, while lockdown-breaching parties held by then-Prime Minister Boris Johnson and his staff caused widespread anger.

Johnson’s successor, Liz Truss, rocked the economy further with a package of drastic tax cuts and lasted just 49 days in office. Rising poverty and cuts to state services have led to gripes about “Broken Britain.”

Hundreds of communities were locked in tight contests in which traditional party loyalties come second to more immediate concerns about the economy, crumbling infrastructure and the National Health Service.

In Henley-on-Thames, about 40 miles (65 kilometers) west of London, voters like Patricia Mulcahy, who is retired, sensed the nation was looking for something different. The community, which normally votes Conservative, may change its stripes this time.

“The younger generation are far more interested in change,’’ Mulcahy said. “So, I think whatever happens in Henley, in the country, there will be a big shift. But whoever gets in, they’ve got a heck of a job ahead of them. It’s not going to be easy.”

In the first hour polls were open, Sunak made the short journey from his home to vote at Kirby Sigston Village Hall in northern England. He arrived with his wife, Akshata Murty, and walked hand-in-hand into the village hall, which is surrounded by rolling fields.

Labour has had a steady and significant lead in opinion polls for months, but its leaders warned in recent days against taking the election result for granted, worried their supporters would stay home.

“Change. Today, you can vote for it,” leader Starmer wrote Thursday on the X social media platform.

A couple of hours after posting that message, Starmer walked with his wife, Victoria, into a polling place in north London to cast his vote. He left through a back door out of sight of a crowd of residents and journalists who had gathered.

Labour has not set pulses racing with its pledges to get the sluggish economy growing, invest in infrastructure and make Britain a “clean energy superpower.”

But nothing has really gone wrong in its campaign, either. The party has won the support of large chunks of the business community and endorsements from traditionally conservative newspapers, including the Rupert Murdoch-owned Sun tabloid, which praised Starmer for “dragging his party back to the center ground of British politics.”

Former Labour candidate Douglas Beattie, author of the book “How Labour Wins (and Why it Loses),” said Starmer’s “quiet stability probably chimes with the mood of the country right now.”

The Conservatives, meanwhile, have been plagued by gaffes. The campaign got off to an inauspicious start when rain drenched Sunak as he made the announcement outside 10 Downing St. Then, Sunak went home early from commemorations in France marking the 80th anniversary of the D-Day invasion.

Several Conservatives close to Sunak are being investigated over suspicions they used inside information to place bets on the date of the election before it was announced.

Sunak has struggled to shake off the taint of political chaos and mismanagement that’s gathered around the Conservatives.

But for many voters, the lack of trust applies not just to the governing party, but to politicians in general.

“I don’t know who’s for me as a working person,” said Michelle Bird, a port worker in Southampton on England’s south coast who was undecided about whether to vote Labour or Conservative. “I don’t know whether it’s the devil you know or the devil you don’t.”

Britain’s Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and opposition Labour Party leader Keir Starmer, left, take part in the BBC’s Prime Ministerial Debate, in Nottingham, England, Wednesday June 26, 2024.
| Photo Credit: AP

Millions went to the polls in the U.K. on Thursday, to vote for 650 MPs in the House of Commons, with the Labour Party projected to win a sizeable, if not historically large majority of more than 400 seats, according to several poll projections.

When final results are announced on Friday morning, the accuracy of the polls and the fate of Rishi Sunak’s government will be known. The 44-year-old British Prime Minister, the first person of Indian descent to hold the position, heads the fifth in a series of Conservative governments that have spanned 14 years. During this period, Britons voted by a small margin to exit the European Union and went through the COVID-19 pandemic with attendant political scandals, including then Prime Minister Boris Johnson breaking lockdown rules.

Also Read | U.K. General Election 2024 LIVE updates

The Conservative years also saw the U.K. economy taking a battering in the years after Brexit, partly because of it, but also due to global inflationary pressures following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and former Prime Minister Liz Truss’s economic policies, enacted during her record short-term of 50 days. Britons faced soaring energy bills, inflation and a cost of living crisis, accompanied by a decline in public services including long wait times for doctors’ appointments.

Consequently, Labour had fashioned its campaign around the theme ‘change’.

“Vote change,” Labour leader Keir Starmer said on Thursday. “Today, Britain’s future is on the ballot,” he wrote, posting a photograph of himself with his wife, Victoria Starmer on social media site X. Some 400 kilometers north of Mr Starmer’s London constituency of Holborn and St Pancras, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and his wife Akshata Murthy cast their votes.

“Vote Conservative to stop the Labour supermajority which would mean higher taxes for a generation,” Mr. Sunak said on X, posting a photograph of himself and Ms. Murthy on their way to a polling station.

In the last stretch of the campaign, Mr. Sunak has repeatedly accused Mr. Starmer and the Labour government of wanting to increase taxes. “You name it, they will tax it,” he had said in a tense final debate with Mr. Starmer on June 26. Conservative politicians have also presented the election as a foregone conclusion, often using the term supermajority. Mr. Starmer had responded accusing the Tories of attempting to “dissuade” people from voting.

The Liberal Democrats, who performed strongly in May’s local elections, are hoping to make third place in the new Parliament, with some polls projecting over 60 seats for them. The other parties in the fray include the Scottish National Party, the Green Party and the nativist and Eurosceptic party, Reform U.K.

The country’s monarch, King Charles III, who was in Scotland on Thursday is expected to return to London to appoint the next Prime Minister during the course of Friday.

Britain’s Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and opposition Labour Party leader Keir Starmer, left, take part in the BBC’s Prime Ministerial Debate, in Nottingham, England, on June 26, 2024.
| Photo Credit: AP

Millions went to the polls in the U.K. on Thursday, to vote for 650 MPs in the House of Commons, with the Labour Party projected to win a sizeable, if not historically large majority of more than 400 seats, according to several poll projections.

When final results are announced Friday morning, the accuracy of the polls and the fate of Rishi Sunak’s government will be known. The 44-year-old British Prime Minister, the first person of Indian descent to hold the position, heads the fifth in a series of Conservative governments that have spanned 14 years. During this period, Britons voted by a small margin to exit the European Union and went through the COVID-19 pandemic with attendant political scandals, including then Prime Minister Boris Johnson breaking lockdown rules.

Also Read | U.K. General Election 2024 LIVE updates

The Conservative years also saw the U.K. economy taking a battering in the years after Brexit, partly because of it, but also due to global inflationary pressures following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and former Prime Minister Liz Truss’s economic policies, enacted during her record short term of 50 days. Britons faced soaring energy bills, inflation and a cost of living crisis, accompanied by a decline in public services including long wait times for doctors’ appointments.

Consequently, Labour had fashioned its campaign around the theme ‘change’.

“Vote change,” Labour leader Keir Starmer said on Thursday. “Today, Britain’s future is on the ballot,” he wrote, posting a photograph of himself with his wife, Victoria Starmer on social media site X. Some 400 kilometers north of Mr. Starmer’s London constituency of Holborn and St. Pancras, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and his wife Akshata Murty cast their votes.

“Vote Conservative to stop the Labour supermajority which would mean higher taxes for a generation,” Mr. Sunak said on X, posting a photograph of himself and Ms. Murty on their way to a polling station.

In the last stretch of the campaign, Mr. Sunak has repeatedly accused Mr. Starmer and the Labour government of wanting to increase taxes. “You name it, they will tax it,” he had said in a tense final debate with Mr. Starmer on June 26. Conservative politicians have also presented the election as a foregone conclusion, often using the term supermajority. Mr. Starmer had responded accusing the Tories of attempting to “dissuade” people from voting.

The Liberal Democrats, who performed strongly in May’s local elections, are hoping to make third place in the new Parliament, with some polls projecting over 60 seats for them. The other parties in the fray include the Scottish National Party, the Green Party and the nativist and Eurosceptic party, Reform U.K.

The country’s monarch, King Charles III, who was in Scotland on Thursday is expected to return to London to appoint the next Prime Minister during the course of Friday.

British voters are picking a new government today, voting in a parliamentary election that is widely expected to bring the Labour Party to power against a gloomy backdrop of economic malaise, mounting distrust in institutions and a fraying social fabric.

A jaded electorate is delivering its verdict on Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s Conservative Party, which has been in power since 2010.

The center-left Labour Party led by Keir Starmer has had a steady and significant lead in opinion polls for months, but its leaders have warned against taking the election result for granted, worried their supporters will stay home.

“We cannot afford five more years under the Conservatives. But change will only happen if you vote Labour,” Mr. Starmer said on Wednesday night.

The Conservatives have conceded that Labour appears headed for victory and urged voters not to hand the party a “supermajority.” – AP