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.

Representational image of people walking past the Bank of England in the City of London financial district in London, Britain
| Photo Credit: Reuters

The U.K. economy slipped into a “technical” recession in 2023, with the final quarter for last year showing a decline in GDP of 0.3%, on the back of a 0.1% decline in growth in the third quarter, as per data released by the country’s Office for National Statistics (ONS) on Thursday. The news was quickly deployed by the opposition Labour Party as a reason to vote out Rishi Sunak’s Conservative government in elections later this year.

“Rishi Sunak has failed to turn the corner on 14 years of Tory economic decline,” Labour leader Keir Starmer said, adding that Labour alone could deliver the change that was needed. Construction, production and services were all down in the final quarter of 2023 as per the ONS. The U.K. grew at 0.1% over 2023 — the weakest growth registered since the 2009 financial crisis, barring 2020, when the pandemic began.

Labour’s shadow chancellor said Mr. Sunak’s plan to grow the economy was “in tatters”.

“Growing the economy” was one of five promises Mr. Sunak had made in January 2023 to energize his party’s flagging poll prospects.

With an eye on the elections, Chancellor Jeremy Hunt is expected to cut taxes in the Budget, which is due on March 6. The tax cuts are reportedly being financed by billions of pounds in funding cuts for public services, which are already in disarray.

“But I would only cut taxes in a way that was responsible,” Mr. Hunt told Sky News on Thursday, adding that he did not want to jeopardize inflation levels, which have fallen since last year. Despite being faced with the latest GDP figures, Mr. Hunt insisted that the economy was “more resilient” than most people had predicted, as he pointed to falling inflation and growing real wages.