UK Election Result 2024 Highlights: 'Change begins now', says Keir Starmer as Labour sweeps to power

The EU on Friday congratulated Keir Starmer on Labour's election win in Britain, with European Council President Charles Michel calling it "historic'. "I look forward to working with you and your government in this new cycle for the UK," Michel said on X, formerly Twitter. "The EU and Britain are crucial partners, cooperating in all areas of mutual interest for our citizens," he said. He added that he would see Starmer at a European Political Community summit to be held in Britain on July 18 "where we will discuss common challenges, including stability, security, energy and migration".

“The optimists said it will take 10 years to fix this party and get it back,” he told reporters ahead of a final rally in the East Midlands.“The pessimists said you’re never going to fix this party, it’s never going to be in government again.” adding “here we are.”

The UK’s new prime minister has far outperformed the expectations of his chances when he took over from the hard-left Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn in 2020. Bland, boring, “no Tony Blair,” as focus groups often describe him, this relative newcomer to the world of politics has, in part, been a beneficiary of circumstances.

Liz Truss has been defeated in South West Norfolk by Labour with a margin of 630 votes, despite holding a majority of over 26,000 in the last election. Labour's victory indicates changing voter sentiments in South West Norfolk.

The outgoing House of Commons featured 15 MPs of Indian origin, and this number is anticipated to rise. In the UK General Election 2024, a total of 107 British-Indian candidates are vying for the 680 available seats.

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has departed from Teesside airport en route to London to tender his resignation to King Charles, according to BBC. Sunak's journey marks a significant political move as he prepares to meet the monarch.

The Tories are being undone by their economic record. The tax rise and record levels of immigration have led to the return on Britain’s political scene of Nigel Farage, a populist who pushed for Brexit and who is now back with a new party called Reform UK.

A record number of over 100 British Indians are contesting the UK general elections on July 4. In 2019, 63 British Indians had contested, with 15 winning seats in the House of Commons. These candidates include professionals like bankers, lawyers, and doctors, many of whom have built successful lives in Britain. Some of them started with very little. For example, Ravi Venkatesh, a Labour candidate for Chippenham, moved to the UK from southern India in 2006 with just £20 (Rs 2,000) in his pocket. He has now created an IT consulting business.

The former interior minister appeared to have already thrown in the towel ahead of the election saying the writing was on the wall and the Tories were likely to lose and must prepare for life in the opposition. Braverman also urged the Conservatives to “return” to the right and warned that their position was being usurped by Nigel Farage’s Reform UK. Braverman was replaced by James Cleverly as interior minister in the last re-shuffle of the last Sunak cabinet. She had courted controversy after suggesting that the Metropolitan Police were too lenient with pro-Palestine protesters.

The Conservatives have experienced a complete loss in Wales, failing to secure any seats in the latest election. In 2019, they had won 14 seats. This marks a repeat of the 1997 scenario when Tony Blair came to power, leaving Welsh Tories without representation at Westminster. The final result was in Monmouthshire, where David TC Davies, who was the Secretary of State for Wales, lost his seat.

"We did it! You campaigned for it, you fought for it, you ovoted for it, and now it has arrived. Change begins now. And it fees good, I have to be honest. four and a half years of wok changing the party, this is what it is for, a changed labour party, ready to serve our country, ready to restore Britain to the service of working people. Make no mistake, that is the great test of politics in this era. The fight for trust is the battle that defines our age. Election victories don’t fall from the sky. They’re hard won and hard fought for, and this one could only be won by a changed Labour Party. Our task is nothing less than renewing the ideals that hold this country together."

Keir Starmer is poised to become Britain's next prime minister with his centre-left Labour Party expected to win a significant majority in the parliamentary election, ending 14 years of Conservative rule led by Rishi Sunak. In a challenging night for Sunak, the Conservatives have so far only won 70 seats. The party is on track for what could be its worst performance in history. Voters have largely blamed the Conservatives for issues such as the cost of living crisis, failing public services, and a series of scandals.

British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak won his parliamentary seat in northern England at the election.

Nigel Farage's right-wing populist party, Reform UK, is set to become a significant player in British politics, securing its first-ever parliamentary seat and eroding the Conservative vote share in the results. Farage himself clinched Reform UK's second victory of the evening in Clacton, overturning a substantial Tory majority of more than 25,000.

Rishi Sunak has arrived at the counting centre for his seat of Richmond and Northallerton. He faces off against Tom Wilson, a 29-year-old Labour candidate who hopes to become the electoral kingslayer and become the first person to defeat a sitting Prime Minister in a general election.

Sureena Brackenbridge, also Indian origin with Labour, has won Wolverhampton North East from Tories for Labour. She is also a brand new MP as is Kirith.

Green Party's co-leader Carla Denyer won against Labour’s shadow culture secretary, Thangam Debbonaire, who is half Indian. This is Labour's loss and Thangam has lost seat.

In a surprising outcome in Leicester South, Labour's Jonathan Ashworth has lost his seat to independent candidate Shockat Adam. Adam secured the position with a narrow majority of 979 votes, equivalent to 2.3%. This marks the first instance of a shadow cabinet minister losing their seat. The result has sent ripples through the political landscape, highlighting a significant shift in voter sentiment that might have arises over his views on Gaza war.

Satirical political character 'Count Binface' speaks to a journalist as staff count ballot papers for Richmond and Northallerton during the UK election in Northallerton, Britain. (Reuters photo)

Nigel Farage, leader of Reform UK, has finally been elected as an MP on his eighth attempt, securing a win in Clacton with 21,225 votes. He defeated the Conservative incumbent Giles Watling, who had a majority of 24,702 at the last election but received just 12,820 votes this time.

This is a huge win for British Indian candidate Shivani Raja as she beat former MPs Claude Webbe and Keith Vaz contesting as Independents in the upcoming elections. Raja, who was born and raised in Leicester, has a comprehensive educational background in the city, having attended Herrick Primary, Soar Valley College, Wyggeston and Queen Elizabeth II College. She graduated with First Class Honours in Cosmetic Science from De Montfort University (DMU).

Jeremy Corbyn, the former Labour leader, has been re-elected as the MP for Islington North. After being banned from running as a Labour candidate, Corbyn stood as an independent and decisively defeated his Labour opponent. Corbyn secured 24,120 votes. In contrast, Labour’s Praful Nargund received 16,874 votes.

Grant Shapps, the defence secretary, lost his seat in Welwyn Hatfield to Labour's Andrew Lewiwn, who received 19,877 votes (41%), whereas Shapps garnered 16,078 votes (33%). Andrew Lewiwn's victory marks a significant change in the constituency, leading to his success over Grant Shapps. The outcome saw Andrew Lewiwn securing 41% of the votes while Grant Shapps received 33% of the vote count. This result concludes Shapps' tenure as the representative for Welwyn Hatfield.

Credit rating agencies that downgraded the UK's rating after Brexit and the market turmoil caused by Liz Truss in 2022 have raised several concerns that require attention from the new government from fiscal rules to economic stability.

Kanishka Narayan of Indian origin who becomes Wales' first MP from a minority ethnic background. Labour gains Vale of Glamorgan from the Conservatives as former Welsh Sec Alun Cairns loses out to Narayan, who was born in India and moved to Cardiff when he was 12. He got into Eton on a scholarship, went on to study at Oxford and then Stanford before becoming a civil servant. Pegged as a rising star in the Labour ecosystem, he said he joined the party because of a “passion for social mobility”.

Britain's new government will have to make "hard choices" to fix a host of problems plaguing the country, its likely next finance minister warned Friday with Labour on course to win the election."I know that the road ahead will not be easy. There are no quick fixes, and hard choices lie ahead," Rachel Reeves said after winning her seat in the northern English city of Leeds.

Labour Party leader and the next likely Prime Minister Keir Starmer at the count for the Holborn and St Pancras Parliamentary constituency where the Starmer is standing for election, in London. Britain's Labour Party is headed for a huge majority in the 2024 UK election. (AP photo)

The Scottish National Party was forecast to suffer its worst result in a British general election since 2010 on Thursday, dealing a blow to Scotland's flagging independence movement.
The exit poll predicted that the SNP would lose dozens of seats and be overtaken by Labour as Scotland's largest party in the UK parliament.

The poll said the pro-separatist party would win only 10 constituencies in Scotland, down from the 48 it won at the last election in 2019, losing its position as Britain's third-biggest party.

Ex-SNP leader and former Scottish leader Nicola Sturgeon said the prediction was "at the grimmer end of the expectations" for her party, which had been tipped to endure a chastening performance.

"This is seismic for Labour. There's no getting away from that, it's a massive achievement for Keir Starmer," she said of predictions that Labour would defeat the ruling Conservatives in a landslide.

It took Rishi Sunak's Conservatives three hours into the counting to open its account. Lewis Cocking of Conservatives holds Broxbourne.

Nigel Farage's Reform UK party won its first parliamentary seat in the British election on Friday, with Lee Anderson retaining a seat he had won in 2019 when he was a member of the Conservative Party.Anderson defected to Reform earlier this year and ran again as the party's candidate.

Alun Cairns, former Welsh Secretary, was defeated by Kanishka Narayan of the Labour Party, BBC reported. She becomes Wales' first Member of Parliament from a minority ethnic background,

Mark Francois, chair of the Tory European Research Group, has retained his seat in Rayleigh and Wickford, Essex, though his majority was significantly reduced from 30,348 to 5,621. His share of the vote also saw a notable drop of 36 points. Francois managed to secure his position despite the reduced majority.

Labour Party's pick Keir Starmer is favoured by pollsters to emerge victorious in the upcoming election and assume the role of prime minister. Starmer is running against incumbent PM Rishi Sunak. On immigration, he plans to establish a "border security command" to combat smuggling operations facilitating small boat crossings. In the housing sector, Starmer aims to boost first-time buyers by introducing a scheme that gives them priority access to new housing developments, while also promising to reform planning laws to deliver 1.5 million new homes.

Brexit figurehead Nigel Farage has claimed to have kickstarted a "revolt against the establishment", after exit polls indicated his hard-right party had secured an unprecedented electoral breakthrough.
Reform UK, a re-brand of the Brexit Party that Farage founded in 2018, were predicted to secure 13 seats -- the first time a party on Britain's far-right fringes has won more than a single seat.

"This, folks, is huge," Farage said in a social media video posted early Friday.

"The revolt against the establishment is underway," he added on X.

Reform appeared to have far exceed expectations in the election, after it was forecast in the latter stages of the campaign to win just a handful of seats in the House of Commons.

Farage, who launched an eighth bid to become one of the country's 650 MPs mid-way through the six-week campaign, was set to succeed finally in Clacton, eastern England, according to the exit poll for UK broadcasters.

Mark Ferguson wins decisively, with Reform taking second place and the Liberal Democrats coming in third.

Chi Onwurah from Labor retains, BBC reported.

Reform UK, the right-wing populist party led by Nigel Farage, looks set to emerge as a new force in British politics, with an election exit poll on Thursday predicting it would win 13 seats, and early results showing it was squeezing the Conservative vote.Farage, a driving force behind Britain's decision to leave the European Union, only entered the election race last month, a move that caused shockwaves in a Conservative Party that was already far adrift of centre-left Labour.In the first three results to be declared, Labour won comfortably, with Reform finishing in second place and Prime Minister Rishi Sunak's Conservatives pushed into third.It took 29% and 27% of the vote in the first two counts, prompting Farage to say: "That is way more than any possible prediction or projection, it's almost unbelievable." Farage's party aims to shake up British politics as Marine Le Pen's National Rally is doing in France by taking a tough line on immigration, demanding that illegal migrants arriving in small boats from France are sent back.

Sharon Hodgson has been re-elected for Labour, while Reform UK has once more outperformed the Tories, securing second place, BBC reported.

Former justice secretary Robert Buckland has lost his Swindon South seat to Labour's Heidi Alexander. Alexander secured 21,676 votes, while Buckland finished second with 12,070 votes, BBC reported. This defeat makes Buckland the first Conservative to lose his seat tonight, ending his tenure that began in 2010.

Britain's pound held steady on Thursday, after an exit poll indicated Keir Starmer's opposition Labour party was on track to win a massive majority in a general election.Sterling was trading around $1.276, up 0.1% on the day, showing little change on levels seen before the exit polls. The pound was also broadly unchanged against the euro , which was flat at 84.71 pence.

Labour's Lewis Atkinson won Sunderland Central with 16,852 votes, BBC reported.

The Scottish National Party was set for its worst showing at a British parliamentary election since 2010 with the exit poll projecting it would win just 10 seats amid a predicted resurgence for the Labour Party in its traditional heartlands.

The SNP, which held 43 seats before the election was called, has suffered from a period of turmoil that has seen two leaders quit in little over a year, a police investigation into the party's finances and splits on a range of policies including its attempts to secure a second referendum on independence.

Former leader Nicola Sturgeon said the exit poll was at the "grimmer end of expectations" for her party, but said she expected it would be proved broadly correct.

Keir Starmer has a daunting in-tray when his Labour party gets to work governing Britain after almost a decade and a half in opposition.

"It's more a gigantic trunk of problems," political scientist Karl Pike told AFP, listing issues ranging from ending strikes in the state-run health service to negotiating a new post-Brexit deal with the European Union.

Starmer, 61, has six priorities to "change" the United Kingdom following 14 years of largely chaotic Conservative rule dominated by Brexit, a crippling cost-of-living crisis and fratricidal infighting.

But implementing his so-called "first steps" will be far from easy due to a battered economy, public services that are on their knees and widespread disillusionment with the political establishment.

"Even the simpler, more straightforward commitments in the manifesto could still actually turn out to be harder to execute," Patrick Diamond, a former Downing Street policy advisor said.

With the Labour Party poised to become the largest party in the UK parliament, here is a look at how Labour leader Keir Starmer, who is likely to become UK's next prime minister, has tried to woo British-Indians as well as India.

Starmer, the leader of the UK's Labour Party, has sought to mend the strained relationship between Labour and India.He has recognized the need to build a stronger strategic partnership with India if Labour forms the next government.

Starmer has acknowledged past missteps by the Labour Party in handling relations with India, particularly over the party's perceived stance favoring Pakistan in the Kashmir issue. He has emphasized the importance of cultivating a proper relationship with India moving forward.