Britain’s Conservative Party won an unexpected majority in Parliament yesterday, taking 327 seats (with three still undeclared) to avoid the need to form a coalition government. Here are the results in graphic from, from the Telegraph:
So David Cameron will serve another term as Prime Minister, while the leaders of the Labour, Liberal Democrat and UKIP parties either have resigned or are expected to.
In simple terms, what happened was that the Scottish Nationalist Party crushed Labour in Scotland, a traditional Labour stronghold, taking 56 out of 59 seats, while UKIP didn’t damage the Tories, winning only one seat. The Liberal Democrats’ vote collapsed; that party will be reduced from 47 seats to 8.
Britain’s result is consistent with a conservative trend across the Anglosphere, as conservative parties have prevailed in recent election cycles in Canada, Australia and the United States (despite President Obama’s re-election in 2012). David Axelrod consulted with the Labour Party on the election. Yesterday on MSNBC, he acknowledged the continuity in issues among the U.K., the U.S. and other advanced economies. Axelrod said it was “clear” that there would be a “progressive majority” in the U.K. after yesterday’s election:
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