Exit Poll Shows Johnson on His Way to Clear Victory

Vote would put Brexit on for next month
By Newser Editors and Wire Services
Posted Dec 12, 2019 6:50 PM CST
Exit Poll Shows Johnson on His Way to Clear Victory
Ballot papers cast are counted Thursday in London.   (AP Photo/Alberto Pezzali)

Boris Johnson’s Conservative Party is likely to win a solid majority of seats in Parliament, an exit poll suggested late Thursday—a decisive outcome to a Brexit-dominated British election that should allow Johnson to fulfill his plan to take the UK out of the European Union next month. It would also make the prime minister the most electorally successful Conservative leader since Margaret Thatcher, another politician who was loved and loathed in almost equal measure. The survey, released just after polls closed, predicted the Conservatives would take 368 of the 650 House of Commons seats and the Labour Party 191, the AP reports. In the last election in 2017, the Conservatives won 318 seats and Labour 262. It would be the biggest Tory majority since Thatcher’s 1980s’ heyday, and Labour’s lowest number of seats since 1935.

That result would be a triumph for Johnson and a disaster for Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, who faced immediate calls for his resignation. "It's Corbyn," a former Labour Cabinet member said in assessing the blame. "We knew he was incapable of leading. We knew he was worse than useless at all the qualities you need to lead a political party." Corbyn, who moved his party left after taking over in 2015, will have led Labour to two electoral defeat since 2017. Both Corbyn and Johnson have low personal approval ratings. (Johnson tied his campaign to Brexit.)

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