Fourteen years. Five prime ministers. Six national votes. Economic crisis, wars, Brexit, a pandemic. Now Britain turns the page as LabourBritain's main left-of-centre political party. wins its first election in almost two decades.

Labour's majority is the second-biggest since 1945.¹ Meanwhile the ConservativesA traditionally right-wing or centre right political party in the UK. Members are sometimes called Tories. have suffered their worst result in history, with 23% of the vote and just 120 seats as of 10am.

At least 10 members of the cabinetThe senior ministers in a government, who attend regular direct meetings with the prime minister. have lost their seats, including Penny MordauntA British Conservative politician who ran to be leader twice in 2022. , potential leadership candidate. In all the elections before this one, only 12 cabinet ministers had ever been unseated.² Other high-profile MPs, like Liz TrussThe Conservative prime minister of the United Kingdom from September to October 2022. and Jacob Rees-MoggA Conservative politician who has been MP for North East Somerset since 2010. He is notorious for his posh, old-fashioned mannerisms., were also defeated.

But Labour did not get it all their own way. Their 34% of the vote was only slightly higher than in their crushing 2019 defeat.³

The party also suffered a string of losses to the GreensIn England and Wales, the Green Party is a left-wing political party. It argues for more taxation and more spending. and independents that experts put down to their left-wing base punishing them for their move to the centre and their pro-Israel position.

And both main parties are now threatened from the right by Reform UKA right-wing populist party in the UK. It has support from Nigel Farage and used to be called the Brexit Party., whose leader, Nigel Farage, is now an MP for the first time.

So what will happen next?

The result is likely to fuel demands for proportional representation. Labour won a third of the vote but 63% of the seats in the House of CommonsThe democratically elected house of the UK Parliament. It consists of 650 Members of Parliament. . The Liberal DemocratsAlso known as the Lib Dems, a liberal political party in the UK. have won 71 seats on 12% of the vote, while Reform picked up just four on 14%.⁴

For centuries, the Conservatives have dominated Britain's political right. Now, for the first time, that space is open to challenge. Reform may try to replace the Conservatives or merge with them.

The Tories will have to decide whether to tack towards the centre, where elections are traditionally won, at the risk of being squeezed by Reform, or try to win back right-wing voters with more hardline policies.

If it fails, one of the most successful political parties in the world will vanish almost overnight.

With his massive majority and a loyal party, Keir Starmer is now one of the most powerful prime ministers in history. Supporters are optimistic he can use that power to fix a broken country.

But the size of that majority could cause its own problems. Labour now represents a wide array of constituencies with differing views. Some voters will want the party to build on the green beltLand that has not been developed, and is still either wild or agricultural. to solve the housing crisis, while others oppose this. Some want Labour to tax the rich, while others are the rich. It cannot keep them all happy.

Either way, Labour cannot afford overconfidence. Starmer has said the party will need a decade to fix Britain. But he might not get that long.

Starmer enters office the least popular a new prime minister has ever been. Three in five people say they dislike him.⁵ It is not a good starting point for a government that will have to make unpopular choices.

Labour has spent this election campaign committing itself to as little as possible. Critics say it has won by default. Now, in government, it will have to lay out its plans. It has little way of knowing how the public will react to them.

And it will immediately have to weather a series of crises: prisons bursting at the seams, Thames WaterA private company responsible for supplying water to and treating waste water from Greater London and some other areas. collapsing, public sector pay demands, universities going bankrupt.

British voters are more volatile than they have ever been before. In the past a majority on this scale would have guaranteed Labour at least three terms in office. But with voters more willing to shop around, they could be thrown out at the next election.

Will Labour revive Britain?

Yes: Labour has been itching for this moment for two decades. Starmer is a competent leader who gets things done. The party can get to grips with the crisis and deliver a new age.

No: Britain's crisis is deep and lasting, and will take a lot of spending to solve. Labour has put itself in a straitjacket by refusing to raise taxes or borrow money. It does not have any way of solving our problems.

Or... Labour may look powerful but with just a third of the vote, it has not yet won the legitimacy for a drastic transformation of the country. Now begins the task of persuasion.