Keir Starmer is new UK Prime Minister

LONDON (AP) — Britain’s Labour Party headed for a landslide victory Friday in a parliamentary election, an exit poll and partial returns indicated, as voters punished the governing Conservatives after 14 years of economic and political upheaval.

As the sun rose, official results showed Labour had 326 of the 650 seats, as vote counting continued. British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak had already acknowledged the defeat and said he called center-left Labour’s leader Keir Starmer to congratulate him on becoming the country’s next prime minister.

Starmer will face a jaded electorate impatient for change against a gloomy backdrop of economic malaise, mounting distrust in institutions and a fraying social fabric.

Tonight people here and around the country have spoken, and they’re ready for change,” Starmer told supporters in his constituency in north London, as the official count showed he’d won his seat. “You have voted. It is now time for us to deliver.”

As thousands of electoral staff tallied millions of ballot papers at counting centers across the country, the Conservatives absorbed the shock of a historic defeat that would leave the depleted party in disarray and likely spark a contest to replace Sunak as leader.