By Ahmet Gurhan Kartal
LONDON (AA) – Britain’s Labour Party has won the parliamentary election after reaching the 326 seats required for a majority in the House Of Commons
The party won 363 seats as 527 of 650 constituencies have declared results.
Speaking after the win Friday morning, party leader Keir Starmer said “the change starts now.”
“We did it!” Starmer said to cheering party members.
“You campaigned for it, you fought for it, you voted for it, and now it has arrived,” he said.
“Change begins now. And it feels good. I have to be honest.
“Four and a half years of work changing the party. This is what it is for: a changed Labour party, ready to serve our country, ready to restore Britain to the service of working people.”
Starmer said great responsibility comes with Labour’s mandate, adding that “we must return politics to public service so that politics can be a force for truth.”
“Make no mistake, that is the great test of politics in this era. The fight for trust is the battle that defines our age,” he said.
Starmer said the “values of this changed Labour party” are the “driving principle for a new government: country first, party second.”
The Labour Party has been projected by an exit poll to win 410 seats in the House of Commons, while the Conservatives are expected to hold 131 seats.
Starmer will replace Rishi Sunak as the new prime minister according to the results.
Sunak is expected to make a farewell speech at Downing Street later in the morning before visiting King Charles III to officially hand in his resignation as prime minister.
Starmer will then go to Buckingham Palace to accept the duty to form a new government from the monarch, before a speech in Number 10.
Millions of voters across the UK cast their ballots to elect 650 Members of Parliament (MPs) to the lower house of Parliament.
The center-right Conservatives have governed the country since 2010. Having secured victories in the last three general elections—2015, 2017 and 2019—the party is predicted to win 131 seats.
The exit poll also suggests that the Liberal Democrats (Lib Dems) will win 61 seats, Reform UK will win 13 and the Scottish National Party (SNP) 10, while independents and others will get 25 seats.