The UK’s election results are pretty shocking

July 30, 2016

By Corinne Purtill

British Prime Minister and Leader of the Conservative Party David Cameron and his wife Samantha leave Conservative Party headquarters in London on May 8, 2015.

LONDON, United Kingdom — No one saw that coming.

The UK woke up Friday morning to an election result that glove-slapped pretty much every prediction of the last six months.

The Conservative Party has an outright majority of seats in the House of Commons. Prime Minister David Cameron will stay in his job at No. 10 Downing Street.

Instead of a Britain divided among half a dozen political parties and doomed to a long, messy post-election power-wrangling period, the general election resulted in the one thing everyone said was impossible: a clear result.

Labour Party head Ed Miliband also resigned as party leader after Labour won just 230 predicted seats.

It isn’t clear who will replace him.

Ed Balls, Labour shadow chancellor and unwitting founder of Ed Balls Day, lost his seat and is out of a job.

“The personal disappointment I feel is nothing compared to the sense of sorrow I feel at the result that Labour has achieved in the UK,” Balls said in a short concession speech.

So what happens now?

The prime minister may be the same, but this government will be totally different. For the past five years, it's had a junior partner: the centrist, libertarian Liberal Democrats. They kept the Conservatives’ most conservative tendencies somewhat in check. This will be the first time the Conservatives will be the sole party in power.

Some items we know are on their wish list: a 2017 referendum on the UK’s membership in the European Union; a “snoopers’ charter,” a bill expanding the state’s ability to monitor mass communications; continuing austerity measures.

Almost certainly the UK will shift farther to the right, with deeper cuts to benefits and stricter immigration controls.

Pollster fail

Everyone said the smaller parties would be the big story in this election. They were right, but not in any of the ways predicted.

The Scottish National Party virtually swept a country that was once a Labour stronghold. (This people did see coming.) They claimed 56 of Scotland’s 59 seats in Parliament. When initial exit polls showed the nationalists taking all but one Scottish seat, even party leader Nicola Sturgeon was skeptical:

I'd treat the exit poll with HUGE caution. I'm hoping for a good night but I think 58 seats is unlikely! #GE15
— Nicola Sturgeon (@NicolaSturgeon) May 7, 2015

By Friday morning, Sturgeon was bleary-eyed — UK election results are an all-night event — but happy.

“Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine we would win 56 seats,” she told the BBC.

The nationalists, who in the past have clashed frequently and loudly with Cameron’s Tories, now have almost complete control over the border, bolstering their demands for more powers for Scotland.

They are also the only one of the smaller parties with a serious presence in the House of Commons.

The Liberal Democrats saw a crushing defeat across the country. They went from 62 members of Parliament to just eight.

More from GlobalPost: UK newspapers don't even pretend to be nonpartisan

Party leader Nick Clegg called it a “cruel and punishing night” for the party. And for him: Clegg doesn’t get to be the UK’s deputy prime minister any more. The Conservatives don’t need their old coalition partners to form a ruling majority this time around, and the Lib Dems’ puny eight seats wouldn't be of much help anyway. Clegg resigned as party leader Friday morning.

Prominent government officials — Business Secretary of State Vince Cable, Chief Treasury Secretary Danny Alexander — lost their parliamentary seats, meaning they’re out of a job altogether.

The UK Independence Party, UKIP, kept just one lawmaker, far short of the vote share they were once predicted to take. Party leader Nigel Farage failed in his bid to become a lawmaker and almost immediately stepped down as party leader.

Green Party leader Natalie Bennett didn’t win her local election either, and the party kept just one seat.

The first sign that Britain’s pollsters failed came just after 10 p.m. here Thursday, when an eerily accurate exit poll showed stunning victories for the Tories and the SNP, and collapse for the Lib Dems.

“If this exit poll is right, Andrew, I will publicly eat my hat on your program,” Lib Dem grandee Lord Paddy Ashdown told the BBC’s Andrew Neil.

A few hours later:

So… pic.twitter.com/ixQr67RdS0
— Corinne Purtill (@corinnepurtill) May 8, 2015