The provisional result of the British parliamentary elections closely matches the exit poll predicted last night by the three major British broadcasters BBC, ITV, and Sky: that Conservative Prime Minister Boris Johnson has achieved a big victory. His party is expected to win 365 seats in the House of Commons, a gain of about fifty seats.
This is the biggest victory for the Conservatives since 1987 under then-Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. With this, Boris Johnson holds a very large majority of 76 seats and can now complete his Brexit plans as quickly as possible.
Jeremy Corbyn's Labour Party wins no more than 203 seats, a loss of nearly sixty seats. This is Labour’s worst defeat since 1983. Corbyn says he will not resign, but he will not be a candidate in the next elections. Labour’s second-in-command is also set to resign. Commentators say this crushing result is mainly a rejection of Labour’s and Corbyn’s 'Marxist course.' ‘Labour loses because of Corbyn,’ one British tabloid headlined.
The Scottish National Party led by Nicola Sturgeon will send 48 Scottish politicians to the House of Commons, a gain of thirteen seats. This is also a loss for the Conservatives and not a recovery for Labour. Whether this means a second referendum on Scottish independence is closer is not expected. The Conservatives are strongly opposed to it.
For the Liberal Democrats, the result is a drama; they do not gain but fall back to 11 seats. Party leader Jo Swinson lost her own seat in her district and has since announced her resignation. This means the pro-European LibDems have not gained a single seat in the many dozens of districts that voted to remain in the EU in 2016. Nigel Farage's vehemently anti-EU Brexit Party did not gain any seats.
The Greens, with their Environment and Climate program, the European Green Deal, have also failed to make any breakthrough: they remain stuck at one seat in the 650-seat House of Commons.
Despite this large public support in Britain for Johnson’s Brexit course, it is still far from certain that the Brexit dossier can be closed. Johnson has stated that he wants to leave the EU by the end of January, to negotiate a new trade deal with Brussels during this year, and that according to current plans, the United Kingdom will indeed leave the EU organization by the end of 2020.
Not only European but also British experts have serious doubts about that timetable. They fear that Johnson and the EU still have many issues to discuss and are far from being done with each other.