Labour leader Keir Starmer has officially become British prime minister hours after his Labour Party swept to power in a landslide victory after more than a decade in opposition.
Starmer was elevated to the nation's leader after a private ceremony with King Charles III in Buckingham Palace.
Outside his new home — the prime minister's residence of 10 Downing Street — Starmer and his wife Victoria spent minutes greeting supporters waving flags as they cheered the arrival of the nation's new leader.
In his first speech as prime minister, Starmer said he would govern for all, whether they voted Labour or not.
"With respect and humility, I invite you all to join this government of service in the mission of national renewal," Starmer said.
"Our work is urgent and we begin it today."
In the merciless choreography of British politics, Starmer takes charge in 10 Downing Street shortly after Conservative leader Rishi Sunak and his family left the official residence and the King accepted his resignation at Buckingham Palace.
Sunak earlier, in his farewell remarks, said he had heard the anger and disappointment of voters and took responsibility for his party's loss.
"This is a difficult day, but I leave this job honoured to have been prime minister of the best country in the world," Sunak said in his final outside 10 Downing Street.
He had opened his speech by saying "I am sorry" and confirmed he would quit as leader of the Conservatives once a replacement had been arranged.
After the speech he left Downing Street for Buckingham Palace to offer his resignation to the King.
Sunak said he had given the job his all.
The 44-year-old conceded defeat earlier in the morning as vote counts confirmed a landslide defeat for his Conservatives to the Labour Party.
Labour has swept to power after more than a decade in opposition, as a jaded electorate handed the party a landslide victory — but also a mammoth task of reinvigorating a stagnant economy and dispirited nation.
Starmer will officially become prime minister later in the day, leading his party back to government less than five years after it suffered its worst defeat in almost a century. In the merciless choreography of British politics, he will take charge in 10 Downing Street hours after Thursday's votes are counted.
"A mandate like this comes with a great responsibility," Starmer acknowledged in a speech to supporters, saying that the fight to regain people's trust after years of disillusionment "is the battle that defines our age".
Speaking as dawn broke in London, he said Labour would offer "the sunlight of hope, pale at first but getting stronger through the day."
Sunak conceded defeat, saying the voters had delivered a "sobering verdict."
Labour's triumph and challenges
With almost all the results in, Labour had won 410 seats in the 650-seat House of Commons and the Conservatives 118.
For Starmer, it's a massive triumph that will bring huge challenges, as he faces a weary electorate impatient for change against a gloomy backdrop of economic malaise, mounting distrust in institutions and a fraying social fabric.
The one word that sums up the UK election
"Nothing has gone well in the last 14 years," said London voter James Erskine, who was optimistic for change in the hours before polls closed. "I just see this as the potential for a seismic shift, and that's what I'm hoping for."
And that's what Starmer promised, saying "change begins now."
Anand Menon, professor of European Politics and Foreign Affairs at King's College London, said British voters were about to see a marked change in political atmosphere from the tumultuous "politics as pantomime" of the last few years.
"I think we're going to have to get used again to relatively stable government, with ministers staying in power for quite a long time, and with government being able to think beyond the very short term to medium-term objectives," he said.
Britain has experienced a run of turbulent years — some of it of the Conservatives' own making and some of it not — that has left many voters pessimistic about their country's future. The UK's exit from the European Union followed by the COVID-19 pandemic and Russia's invasion of Ukraine battered the economy, while lockdown-breaching parties held by then-Prime Minister Boris Johnson and his staff caused widespread anger.
Rising poverty, crumbling infrastructure and overstretched National Health Service have led to gripes about "Broken Britain".
Johnson's successor, Liz Truss, rocked the economy further with a package of drastic tax cuts and lasted just 49 days in office. Truss lost her seat to Labour, was one of a slew of senior Tories kicked out in a stark electoral reckoning.
While the result appears to buck recent rightward electoral shifts in Europe, including in France and Italy, many of those same populist undercurrents flow in Britain. Reform UK leader Nigel Farage has roiled the race with his party's anti-immigrant "take our country back" sentiment and undercut support for the Conservatives and even grabbed some voters from Labour.
Conservative vote collapses as smaller parties surge
The result is a catastrophe for the Conservatives as voters punished them for 14 years of presiding over austerity, Brexit, a pandemic, political scandals and internecine conflict.
The historic defeat —the smallest number of seats in the party's two-century history — leaves it depleted and in disarray and will likely spark an immediate contest to replace Sunak as leader.
In a sign of the volatile public mood and anger at the system, the incoming Parliament will be more fractured and ideologically diverse than any for years. Smaller parties picked up millions of votes, including the centrist Liberal Democrats and Farage's Reform UK. It won four seats, including one for Farage in the seaside town of Clacton-on-Sea, securing a place in Parliament on his eighth attempt.
The Liberal Democrats won about 70 seats, on a slightly lower share of the vote than Reform because its votes were more efficiently distributed. In Britain's first-past-the-post system, the candidate with the most votes in each constituency wins.
The Green Party has won four seats, up from just one before the election.
One of the biggest losers was the Scottish National Party, which held most of Scotland's 57 seats before the election but looked set to lose all but handful, mostly to Labour.
Labour was cautious but reliable
Labour did not set pulses racing with its pledges to get the sluggish economy growing, invest in infrastructure and make Britain a "clean energy superpower."
But the party's cautious, safety-first campaign delivered the desired result. The party won the support of large chunks of the business community and endorsements from traditionally conservative newspapers, including the Rupert Murdoch-owned Sun tabloid, which praised Starmer for "dragging his party back to the centre ground of British politics."
Conservative missteps
The Conservative campaign, meanwhile, was plagued by gaffes. The campaign got off to an inauspicious start when rain drenched Sunak as he made the announcement outside 10 Downing Street. Then, Sunak went home early from commemorations in France marking the 80th anniversary of the D-Day invasion.
Several Conservatives close to Sunak are being investigated over suspicions they used inside information to place bets on the date of the election before it was announced.
In Henley-on-Thames, about 65 kilometres west of London, voters like Patricia Mulcahy, who is retired, sensed the nation was looking for something different. The community, which has long voted Conservative, flipped to the Liberal Democrats this time.
"The younger generation are far more interested in change,'' Mulcahy said ahead of the results. "But whoever gets in, they've got a heck of a job ahead of them. It's not going to be easy."
