BRITAIN'S BIG SWING

Labour poised for landslide as voters oust Tories after 14 years in power

- BRIAN MELLEY AND JILL LAWLESS

Londoners gather at BBC headquarters on Thursday as an exit poll predicts a huge majority for Labour in the U.K. general election.

LONDON Britain’s Labour party headed for a landslide victory Friday in a parliamentary election, 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 centreleft 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.

As the official count showed he won his seat in Parliament, Starmer said voters “have spoken and they are ready for change.”

Thousands of electoral staff tallied millions of ballot papers at counting centres across the country, while the Conservatives absorbed the shock of a historic defeat that would leave the depleted party in disarray and 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 result appeared to buck recent rightward electoral shifts in Europe, including in France and Italy, many of those same populist undercurrents flow in Britain.