British Conservatives blame Rishi Sunak for their defeat
Photo: REUTERS.
Immediately after the publication of the exit poll results, which promised the Labour Party led by Keir Starmer a triumphant return to power after a quarter of a century in opposition, the United Kingdom began to actively comment on the past election campaign.
The Conservatives are expected to win 131 of the 650 seats, while Labour will win 410.
Former Scottish Conservative leader Ruth Davidson has described her party’s crushing defeat as a massacre.
– 131, no frills, this is a massacre. – she said. Sunak ran one of the worst election campaigns in living memory. We have upset pensioners, we have upset mortgage payers, we have upset young people, Brexiteers.
Senior Labour Party member Peter Mandelson said he was “shocked by the results”. “An electoral meteorite has fallen on planet Earth,” he said figuratively, commenting on Labour’s victory.
The Conservatives’ failure was commented on by the former leader of this party, former British Foreign Secretary William Hague, who admitted that the result obtained by the Conservatives “is catastrophic” and “they will need a long time to recover from the defeat.”
But the newly formed right-wing party Reform UK, led by Nigel Farage, which currently sits fourth with 13 seats in parliament (the Liberal Democrats are third with 61 seats), believes that the British political Olympus has become “very seismic”, citing such a definition with its confident debut.
In fifth place is the Scottish National Party (10 seats in parliament). Former Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon described the exit poll results as “the darkest extreme of all expectations” for her party.
The British Electoral Commission also made a special statement. It said some candidates were “subjected to unacceptable abuse and intimidation” during this election. They promised to “gather evidence from people who participated in this election as candidates, voters and agitators.”
An hour before the polls closed, British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak dissolved parliament and presented a list of candidates for promotion to the peerage. It included, among others, the name of former British Prime Minister Theresa May. He thanked all those who voted for the Conservatives.
