Britain's opposition Labour Party leader Keir Starmer and his wife Victoria Starmer walk outside a polling station during the general election in London, Britain, July 4, 2024. REUTERS/Claudia Greco
"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," Starmer said on X. "Much of the damage to the Conservative Party tonight is being done by Reform, even if it is the Labour Party that proves to be the beneficiary," John Curtice, Britain's most respected pollster told the BBC.
"If this exit poll is correct, then this is a historic defeat for the Conservative Party, one of the most resilient forces that have we have seen in British political history," Keiran Pedley, research director at Ipsos, which carried out the exit poll, told Reuters. Sunak's early departure from D-Day commemorative events in France to do a TV interview angered veterans, and even those within his own party said it raised questions about his political acumen.