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Boris Johnson and the Conservative Party will form the next government of the United Kingdom after exit polls showed a victory in the December 2019 election. That’s according to the first exit polls from the BBC that were released at 5 p.m. Eastern time on December 12. Voting ended in the UK at 10 p.m. GMT. Johnson’s Conservatives expected to carry a majority.
The first exit poll saw the Conservatives win 368 seats in the British parliament compared to Labour’s 191. The Liberal Democrats’ won 13 seats, the Brexit Party had zero, the Scottish National Party had 55, Green Party 1 seat with Independents winning 22 of the seats.
There are 46 million registered voters in the United Kingdom. This is the first time since December 1923 that the UK has held a general election in December. Prime Minister Boris Johnson has promised that the United Kingdom would leave the European Union on January 31. While Corbyn has said that his government will hold a second referendum on Brexit.
Corbyn and the Labour Party have failed to end nearly ten years of Conservative rule. A rule which has seen three Prime Ministers, Brexit, the Grenfell disaster and growing concerns over Britain’s National Healthcare Service.
Corbyn’s leadership of the Labour Party has been tarnished by allegations of antisemitism. On the day of the election, the New York Times published an op-ed titled, “A Vote for Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party Is a Vote for Anti-Semitism.”
In the U.S., Corbyn’s campaign had the support of Democratic Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio Cortez. The Bronx-native exhibited her support for Corbyn by posting a pro-Labour Party video:
This video is about the UK, but it might as well have been produced about the United States.
The hoarding of wealth by the few is coming at the cost of peoples’ lives.
The only way we change is with a massive surge of *new* voters at the polls. UK, Vote!
While The Hill reported that the Democratic Party members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee were nervous about Corbyn’s political rise. Israeli politicians have echoed those concerns.
According to YouGov, Johnson had been slated to win a majority of 28 seats.
Johnson’s final pitch to voters saw him exhibit a similar refrain, “Only if you get Brexit done [can you] move the country forward.” While Corbyn told British voters that there was a “greater understanding” that the government must begin properly funding public services again, via the BBC. The two-party leaders held rallies for party members in London on the night of December 11.
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