Labour Party wins UK election after 14 years of Tory rule

The United Kingdom will soon have a new Prime Minister after Britain’s Labour Party claimed a sweeping victory at the UK elections.

An official exit poll* had forecast Labour would knock the Conservatives out of power with a win of 410 seats, and a majority* of 170. The Conservatives, or Tories as they are also known, have been in power for 14 years, making the Labour win quite a blow to the party.

As of 5am. Friday in London, the Labour Party had won 326 of the 650 seats in the UK parliament, meaning they had enough to claim victory despite votes still being counted.

If the forecast from the exit poll is right, the loss would be the Tories’ worst performance in a UK general election since before the Second World War.

Under a Labour Government, the UK will get a new Prime Minister, Sir Keir Starmer, and the Conservatives leader Rishi Sunak will no longer have the top job.

The exit poll for Sky, conducted by IPSOS predicted that the Tories would get around 131 seats.

In terms of the UK’s other parties, the Liberal Democrats could gain 53 seats, finishing with 61 while Nigel Farage’s party, Reform UK could secure as many as 13 seats.

The Scottish National Party has been forecast to win just 10 seats after losing 38.

Plaid Cymru could finish with four and the Green Party with two.

LABOUR’S BIG VICTORY
Labour’s win has been predicted to be the biggest victory by the party since Tony Blair’s historic win in 1997.

In 1997, the Labour Party had been out of power for longer than it has been now — 18 years compared to the current 14.

So it was quite a turnaround when Labour, under the leadership of the youthful Blair, won the May 1, 1997 general election. “New Labour, New Britain” was the party’s slogan, and “Things can only get better” by D-ream was its theme song.

Under Blair, Labour won a majority of 179 seats, even bigger than the party’s victory over Winston Churchill’s* Conservatives soon after the defeat of Nazi Germany in 1945.

Sir Starmer said: “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.”

TORIES’ BIG LOSS
Tory voters that turned to the controversial Reform UK Party, led by Nigel Farage, have in part been blamed for the Conservatives’ loss.

Reform UK has been forecast to win 13 seats in the election after winning no seats the last time the UK went to the polls.

Reform UK’s election promises include freezing all “non-essential immigration*” and leaving the European Convention on Human Rights (ECtHR)* so that asylum-seekers* can be deported* more freely. Another election promise has been to cap “net zero” goals* to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in order to bring down the cost of energy bills.

Former senior Tory Sir John Redwood told Sky News that the Conservative’s result was “extremely bad” because the public was “very angry and very unhappy” about lockdown, tax levels, migrants into the country and inflation*.

He said UK citizens expressed these feelings by voting against the Tories.

He noted that the Labour Party has received a relatively small share of the vote compared to previous elections, but would win a big majority because of the split* among other parties.

POLL

GLOSSARY

• exit poll: an opinion poll that suggest how people have voted
• majority: most of the votes
• Winston Churchill: the Prime Minister of the UK during the final years of WWII
• immigration: people moving to the UK from other countries
• European Convention on Human Rights (ECtHR): an international convention to protect human rights and political freedoms in Europe, drafted in 1950 in the aftermath of the atrocities committed during WWII
• asylum-seekers: people who flee danger in their own country by moving to another country
• deported: when an immigrant or asylum-seeker is sent back to their home country
• cap “net zero” goals: restrict national goals set to reduce greenhouse gas emissions
• inflation: when the prices of things go up
• split: the way votes are divided between parties

EXTRA READING
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Trump’s presidential prison portrait
Rishi Sunak becomes British PM

QUICK QUIZ
1. Which political party has won the 2024 UK election?
2. Who will be the new Prime Minister?
3. How long were the Tories in power before being voted out?
4. When was Tony Blair voted in as Prime Minister?
5. Which political party did he belong to?

LISTEN TO THIS STORY

CLASSROOM ACTIVITIES
1. Types of government
The UK and Australia are both constitutional monarchies, with similar styles of government, both based on the ‘representative democracy’ model. Research to find out what this means and then write a paragraph to explain it.

Find out the names of 3 other models of government and write a one sentence definition for each.

Time: allow 30 minutes to complete this activity
Curriculum Links: English; HASS (Civics and Citizenship)

2. Extension
The news article mentions some of the issues that voters considered when deciding who to vote for. Think about some of the big issues in Australia at the moment (the things that influence our quality of life) and your personal opinions on these topics. Choose the 3 that you think are most important to people and write 3 short ‘election promises’ that you would make to voters if you were trying to get elected. Your promises should try to appeal to a broad section of the community and be realistic.

Time: allow 30 minutes to complete this activity
Curriculum Links: English; HASS (Civics and Citizenship)

VCOP ACTIVITY
Up-level the vocabulary
When Sir John Redwood spoke to Sky News, Vinny Vocabulary certainly wasn’t helping him with his responses.

Can you and Vinny work together to uplevel Sir John’s language?

What synonyms can you come up with for:

• extremely bad
• very angry
• very unhappy