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      Keir Starmer Is Poised to Be Britain’s Next Prime Minister

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      Keir Starmer is all but certain to become the next prime minister of Britain, after an exit poll projected that his Labour Party would win the general election in a landslide on Thursday. The exit poll, which has accurately predicted the winner of the last five British general elections, indicated late Thursday that Labour was on course to win a commanding majority of seats in the British House of Commons. That would mean Mr. Starmer would replace Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, who took office less than two years ago.Mr. Starmer, a 61-year-old former human rights lawyer, has led a remarkable turnaround for the Labour Party, which just a few years ago suffered its worst election defeat since the 1930s. He has pulled the party to the political center while capitalizing on the failings of three Conservative prime ministers.“He has been ferociously — some would say tediously — boring in his discipline,” Jill Rutter, a research fellow at the London research group U.K. in a Changing Europe, told The New York Times recently. “He’s not going to set hearts racing, but he does look relatively prime-ministerial.”Mr. Starmer was raised in a left-wing, working-class family in Surrey, outside London. He was not close with his father; his mother, a nurse, suffered a debilitating illness that took her in and out of the hospital. Mr. Starmer became the first college graduate in his family, studying first at Leeds University, and then law at Oxford.He was named after Keir Hardie, a Scottish trade unionist who was Labour’s first leader. As a young lawyer, he represented protesters accused of libel by the fast-food chain McDonald’s, and he later rose to become Britain’s chief prosecutor and was awarded a knighthood.Elected to Parliament in 2015, he succeeded the left-wing Jeremy Corbyn as Labour leader in 2020 and began remaking the party. He dropped Mr. Corbyn’s proposal to nationalize Britain’s energy companies and promised not to raise taxes on working families. He also committed to supporting Britain’s military, hoping to banish an anti-patriotic label that clung to Labour during the Corbyn era.Mr. Starmer also rooted out the antisemitism that had contaminated the party’s ranks under Mr. Corbyn. Though he has not drawn a link between that and his personal life, his wife, Victoria Starmer, comes from a Jewish family in London. More

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      This English Naval City Is a Bellwether Seat. How Do Voters Feel?

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      As voters cast their ballots in a pivotal election, many in the southern English city of Portsmouth expressed disillusionment over what they see as national and local decline.Voters streamed into a polling station in Portsmouth, a city nestled along England’s southern coast that is known for its naval base and historic dockyard, on Thursday morning as ballot workers greeted them warmly.Older couples walked hand in hand into the local church, which had been temporarily fitted out with ballot boxes, alongside parents with children in strollers, and young adults rushing in on the way to work.One by one, they weighed in on the future of the nation in a vote that polls suggested could end 14 years of Conservative-led government.“I just want to see change,” said Sam Argha, 36, who was outside the polling station on Thursday morning. “I just really want to see us do something differently.”Many people in the city expressed a similar desire for a new start at a moment of intense national uncertainty. Polls have predicted that the election could be a major turning point, with the center-left Labour Party expected to unseat the right-wing Conservative Party, possibly with a crushing landslide.Portsmouth North is considered a bellwether seat — the area has voted for the winning political party in every general election since 1974.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      What to Know About the UK Election on July 4

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      Why does this election matter?How does Britain vote?What are the main issues?Who is running, and who is likely to win?When will we find out the results?Where can I find more information?Why does this election matter?The general election on July 4 is a pivotal moment for Britain after 14 years of government by the Conservative Party. The last full parliamentary election was in December 2019, when Boris Johnson won a landslide victory for the Conservatives, propelled by his charisma and a promise to “Get Brexit done” after the country’s decision to leave the European Union in a 2016 referendum.A lot has changed since then. In July, voters will give their verdict on five tumultuous years of government that have spanned the coronavirus pandemic, the troubled implementation of Brexit, the “Partygate” scandal around Mr. Johnson’s rule-breaking during pandemic lockdowns and the disastrous six-week tenure of Prime Minister Liz Truss.The Parliament in London. Voters in each of the country’s 650 constituencies will select a candidate to represent them as a member of Parliament.Hollie Adams/ReutersPolls suggest that the center-left Labour Party is set to return to power after more than a decade in opposition, which would bring a fundamental realignment to British politics.How does Britain vote?The United Kingdom — which consists of England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales — is divided into 650 constituencies.Voters in each constituency select a candidate to represent them as a member of Parliament, and the political party that wins the most seats usually forms the next government. That party’s leader also becomes prime minister.

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      Sadiq Khan Heads for 3rd Term as London Mayor

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      Initial results showed the mayor, representing the center-left opposition Labour Party, gaining ground against a right-wing rival who focused on crime and cars.Sadiq Khan, the two-term center-left mayor of London, was poised on Saturday to become the first three-time winner of the job by a clearer margin than some of his supporters had predicted.Mr. Khan, from the main opposition Labour Party, was initially elected to the post in 2016, becoming London’s first Muslim mayor, and would now become the first politician to win three consecutive terms since the role was created in 2000.With the Labour Party well ahead in the opinion polls ahead of a looming general election, many analysts had expected Mr. Khan to cruise to a comfortable victory in a city that tends to lean to the left, but some saw the potential for an unexpectedly tight race against Susan Hall, representing Britain’s governing Conservative Party.That prospect quickly faded on Saturday, with Mr. Khan’s party declaring victory and the BBC forecasting him as the winner after results from half of London’s regions showed the mayor exceeding his performance in his last election, in 2021.“Sadiq Khan was absolutely the right candidate,” said Keir Starmer, leader of the Labour Party. “He has got two terms of delivery behind him and I am confident he has got another term of delivery in front of him.”The vote itself took place on Thursday along with other local and mayoral elections in which the Conservatives, led by Britain’s embattled prime minister, Rishi Sunak, suffered a series of setbacks.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Rishi Sunak’s Dismal Task: Leading U.K. Conservatives to Likely Defeat

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      After 14 years of Conservative government, Britain’s voters appear hungry for change. And Prime Minister Rishi Sunak seems unable to persuade them otherwise.A few days before Britain’s Conservative Party suffered a stinging setback in local elections on Thursday, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak recorded a short video to promote some good news from his government. In the eight-second clip, Mr. Sunak poured milk from a pint bottle into a tall glass, filled with a steaming dark beverage and bearing the scribbled figure of 900 pounds on the side.“Pay day is coming,” Mr. Sunak posted, referring to the savings that an average wage earner would supposedly reap from a cut in mandatory contributions to Britain’s national insurance system.The mockery soon started. He’d added too much milk, some said. His numbers didn’t add up, said others. And why, asked one critic, would Mr. Sunak choose a pint bottle as a prop days after the opposition Labour Party’s deputy leader, Angela Rayner, had skewered him in Parliament as a “pint-size loser?”However partisan her jab, loser is a label that Mr. Sunak is finding increasingly hard to shake, even among his members of his own party. In the 18 months since he replaced his failed predecessor, Liz Truss, Mr. Sunak, 43, has lost seven special parliamentary elections and back-to-back local elections.This past week’s local elections, in which the Conservatives lost about 40 percent of the 985 seats they were defending, were merely the latest signpost on what analysts say is a road to thumping defeat in a general election. National polls show the Labour Party leading the Conservatives by more than 20 percentage points, a stubborn gap that the prime minister has been unable to close.The drumbeat of bad news is casting fresh scrutiny on Mr. Sunak’s leadership and the future of his party, which has been in power for 14 years but faces what could be a long stretch in the political wilderness.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Humza Yousaf Resigns as Scotland’s First Minister

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      Mr. Yousaf, the leader of the Scottish National Party, announced that he was stepping down, days after the collapse of his coalition government.Scotland’s first minister, Humza Yousaf, resigned on Monday in the latest setback for his Scottish National Party, which has been engulfed in a slow-burn crisis over a funding scandal that erupted after its popular leader Nicola Sturgeon stepped down last year.Mr. Yousaf’s departure had looked increasingly inevitable after he gambled last week by ending a power sharing deal with the Scottish Green Party, angering its leaders and leaving him at the head of a minority government without obvious allies. His opponents then pressed for two motions of no confidence, which were expected to take place later this week.Having explored his options over several fraught days, Mr. Yousaf, who was Scotland’s first Muslim leader, said that he would quit in a speech on Monday at Bute House in Edinburgh, the official residence of the Scottish first minister.“After spending the weekend reflecting on what is best for my party, for the government and for the country I lead, I have concluded that repairing our relationship across the political divide can only be done with someone else at the helm,” Mr. Yousaf said in a short and at times emotional statement.He added, “It is my intention to continue as first minister until my successor is elected.”His resignation came after little more than a year as leader of the S.N.P., which has dominated the country’s politics for more than a decade and which campaigns for Scottish independence.Mr. Yousaf took over after the surprise resignation of Ms. Sturgeon, a prominent figure in Britain’s politics, who announced her departure in February last year. At the time Mr. Yousaf was seen as the continuity candidate.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      U.K. to Cut Taxes Again as Election Nears

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      The Conservative government, trailing badly in the polls, proposed the second tax cut in four months.Amid lackluster prospects for economic growth, the British government announced it would cut taxes for workers ahead of a general election this year.Jeremy Hunt, Britain’s top financial official, told lawmakers on Wednesday that he would cut National Insurance, a payroll tax paid by workers and employers that funds state pensions and some benefits, by two percentage points. It would take the rate for about 27 million employees down to 8 percent, and follows a two percentage point cut announced less than four months ago. Together, the cuts would save the average employee about 900 pounds ($1,145) a year, Mr. Hunt said. The rate was also cut for self-employed workers.“We can now help families not just with temporary cost-of-living support but with permanent cuts in taxation,” Mr. Hunt, the chancellor of the Exchequer, said in Parliament. “We do this to give much needed help in challenging times. But also because Conservatives know lower tax means higher growth.”Mr. Hunt also announced a sweep of smaller measures, including freezing taxes on alcohol and fuel, proposals to increase productivity in the public sector, and abolishing the tax advantages for foreign earnings of British residents living abroad.The chancellor has been under political pressure from the governing Conservative Party to lower taxes ahead of the general election, which is expected to take place this year, though a date has not been set yet. The party is substantially lagging the opposition Labour Party in the polls.But Mr. Hunt’s ability to offer sweeteners to voters has been constrained by the fact that the British economy is growing slowly — if at all. Stretched public services need money and there are calls to invest more in infrastructure. The chancellor also has to meet his self-imposed budget rules, which gave him even less fiscal room to maneuver.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      George Galloway Wins Rochdale By-Election in Blow to Labour Party

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      Mr. Galloway is likely to be a thorn in the main opposition party’s side. Labour was forced to disown its candidate in the special election over antisemitic remarks.A parliamentary district held recently by Britain’s main opposition Labour Party has slipped from its grip after a chaotic election campaign that became emblematic of the anger that has swept through British politics over the war in Gaza.George Galloway, a left-wing firebrand, won the seat in Rochdale, north of Manchester, with 12,335 votes, according to official results announced early Friday. Voting had taken place on Thursday to replace Tony Lloyd, a Labour Party lawmaker who had represented the district but died of blood cancer in January.Mr. Galloway, founder of the far-left Workers Party of Britain, once represented Labour in Parliament but was forced out of the party in 2003 over his outspoken criticism of the Iraq war.In his campaign in Rochdale, Mr. Galloway appealed directly to the district’s Muslim voters, who make up around 30 percent of the electorate. Many of them are angry about the war in Gaza and want Britain to press harder for an immediate cease-fire.In his campaign literature, Mr. Galloway described Keir Starmer, leader of the Labour Party, as a “top supporter of Israel” and suggested his leadership could be weakened by the outcome of the vote. “Imagine — the people of Rochdale coming together to topple the hated Labour leader,” the leaflet added.That prospect may be fanciful, as recent polling suggests Mr. Starmer is more popular with voters than any other leading politician in Britain. But Mr. Galloway’s victory followed a chaotic campaign for Labour. The party was forced to disown its own candidate, Azhar Ali, after a recording revealed that he had claimed that Israel had “allowed” Hamas to go ahead with the Oct. 7 attacks as a pretext to invade Gaza.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More