On Thursday, the United Kingdom’s Conservative Party won its largest majority since 1987, with unofficial results (exit polls) showing a massive 368 seat majority, flipping some of the most liberal districts for the first time in history
The extremely liberal Labor Party’s 191 seat wins are the worst results the party has had since 1935.
The liberal mining community Blyth Valley flipped for the first time since it was established in 1950, with Conservative Ian Levy winning a 42.7% majority despite fellow conservative Brexit candidates on the ballot also. It is the first time in 60 years that Blyth Valley has gone conservative.
“We never thought we’d get Blyth Valley,” said British newspaper editor George Osbourne.” He continued, “We had hopes in a place called Tynemouth, which we might come to later. There’s a Conservative candidate in Hexham who I heard a couple of days ago saying ‘we are going to win Blyth valley’ and I thought he was always a bit optimistic, this guy. But he was right and that is a pretty spectacular win.”
Many failed Labor Party candidates and supporters are blaming Labor Party leader Jeremy Corbin for their crippling defeat of this magnitude for the first time since World War II.
Later in the evening, other traditionally liberal constituencies, notably the constituency of Peterborough, which hasn’t been held since 2015. Conservative Paul Bristow will be the new Member of Parliament from the left-leaning district.
According to NBC News, “British broadcasters have been using exit polls since 1974 and while they returned some inaccurate results in the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s, they have been much more reliable in recent years, calling the 2005 and 2010 elections exactly right.”