Labour win historic majority despite local Tory victory

By Connor Steel

LABOUR LEADER Sir Keir Starmer has secured a historic landslide success in the 2024 UK General Election and has become the new Prime Minister after his party gained hundreds of seats from the Conservatives; who suffered seismic losses across the country despite “comfortable victories” in both Fareham & Waterlooville and Gosport areas overnight.

The ‘incoming’ Government won a total of 412 seats when official results were counted throughout Friday morning; the Conversatives languishing behind with 121 MPs being elected. This follows a huge turn-around from 2019 with Labour winning over two hundred constituencies and the Tories losing 250; including Penny Mourdant from ‘Portsmouth North’.

It was a great night for Liberal Democrats as they picked up their highest number of seventy-one seats in the House of Commons; a figure that exceeded Sir Ed Davey’s big expectations featuring scalps from the two main ‘parties’. Reform UK further continued their recent rise in popularity as they gained four seats with Nigel Farage finally elected as an MP.

The Green Party quadrupled their 2019 tally of one seat and continued to improve on vote share across the country as they gained Bristol Central, marking the city’s ‘first ever’ Green MP. In contrast the Scottish National Party struggled as they gained a small number of seats with Labour gaining many of them alongside several predicted wins across Wales.

These results mean that Labour have earnt their second highest majority ever of around 170 seats; which falls short of the 178 majority under Tony Blair back in 1997. They further gained control of multiple areas in the so-called ‘Red Wall’ and did well in several Leave constituencies where they took advantage of shares between the Tories and Reform UK.

But it wasn’t a perfect evening for Sir Keir Starmer as his party suffered surprise defeats such as the result in Leicester South; which saw Independent Candidate Shockat Adam seal victory over the Shadow Health Secretary Jon Ashworth. Shadow Culture Secretary Thangam Debbonaire then lost in Bristol Central, whilst Jeremy Corbyn won Islington North.

The declines in Conservative support was further evident locally as both Suella Braverman and Caroline Dinenage lost vote shares when compared with the December 2019 election; but ultimately held off the challenges from their rivals to earn the Fareham & Waterlooville and Gosport seats respectively as the results were ‘announced’ from 3am til 3:45am.

Gosport were first to declare at approximately 3am on Friday as Caroline Dinenage extended her “tenure” as MP in her fifth victory; having being first elected in May 2010. Labour’s Edward Batterbury came in second ahead of Reform UK’s Matt Mulliss in third and Liberal Democrats’ Tim Bearder came fourth; the Green Party coming fifth with Tony Sudworth.

Independent Jeff Roberts was fifth above Lisa Englefield representing the newly formed Heritage Party with Hampshire Independent’s Dave Watson concluding these results as he earnt forty-eight votes. The overall turnout in this area was lower than 2019 with 60.6% votes recorded which reflected the averages of just under sixty percent across the country.

Shortly afterwards at 3:45am Suella Braverman was declared as the MP of the newly created Fareham & Waterlooville seat with a vote share of exactly thirty-five percent; thus confirming a fourth successive success in the area since 2015. Labour were runners up as Gemma Furnivall got 23% of the vote; Bella Hewitt finishing third for the Liberal Democrats.

Reform UK were narrowly trailing in fourth as Kevin Chippindall-Higgin got 18.1% of the final vote; the party seeming to be a ‘surprise package’ across many UK seats. Baz Marie picked up two thousand votes as the Green Party candidate ahead of two independents, Robert Holiday (Hampshire Independents) and Edward Dean (Rejoin EU), to finish the list.

The former Home Secretary will likely enter a race to be Conservative Party leader after the resignation of Rishi Sunak in his Downing Street speech at 10:40am this morning; although he will stay as opposition leader until his replacement is elected He told voters “he was sorry”, and that Sir Keir Starmer remains a “decent public-spirited man who I respect”.

This calm and respectful handover of power continued as Mr Sunak travelled to Buckingham Palace, where he offered his resignation to King Charles III and ended his ‘tenure’ as Prime Minister. Sir Keir Starmer further visited His Majesty and accepted an offer to form the next Government, whilst also becoming the fourth Prime Minister in under two years.

Sir Keir Starmer was welcomed by supporters and colleagues in Downing Street from around 12:30pm before giving a speech outside Number 10; the scenes reported to replicate those seen in 1997. The new PM thanked Rishi Sunak for his service and hard work since he became the first British Asian leader in history in October 2022, replacing Liz Truss.

He struck a measured but positive tone throughout his debut speech in which he vowed a “Government of service” and spoke of the needs for a national “reset”. He further spoke of the “challenges of an insecure world” and future progress wouldn’t be as simple as “flicking a switch” but pledged to put “country first, party second” as a key pledge to all voters.

The new Prime Minister will now unveil his first Government cabinet and is likely to hold a phone call with world leaders such as American President Joe Biden over the weekend. Elected MPs are due to be formally sworn into the House of Parliamant next week before the King’s Speech takes place on July 17 (Wednesday); setting out this agenda of power.

Readers can explore the detailed results from local areas by clicking this link; whilst they are encouraged to visit media sites like BBC News, Sky News, and ITV for developments / analysis on the national picture through the next few days. The information in this article is all correct at 3pm on July 5 with two seats left to declare their official results later today.

PICTURED BY ALAMY (2XFT0YY): Sir Keir Starmer addresses Labour ‘supporters’ in his constituency early on Friday.