
Exit poll — prepare for a tory landslide | thearticle
- Select a language for the TTS:
- UK English Female
- UK English Male
- US English Female
- US English Male
- Australian Female
- Australian Male
- Language selected: (auto detect) - EN
Play all audios:

At 10pm, the BBC’s exit poll of 20,000 voters showed the Conservatives with an outright majority. The Tories are set to win 368 and Labour 191 — that is a Conservative majority of 86, the
biggest win since Thatcher in 1987. For Corbyn, that’s even lower than Michael Foot back in 1983. It’s a rise of 50 seats for the Tories — the Labour party will lose 71 MPs. The Lib Dems are
up one seat and the SNP is on 55 seats. The Brexit Party remains on zero. If these projections are correct, Boris Johnson is about to win the clear backing of the electorate to take Britain
out of the EU next month. We are going for a hard Brexit. As for Corbyn, these results are a catastrophe. There is no way around it — he will have taken his party to a disaster of historic
proportions. Dogged by charges of anti-Semitism that he was unable to shake, combined with a stark economic offering that took aim at business and a weak and unclear position on Brexit,
Corbyn has proved once more the old adage that Britain does not vote for hard left politics. If these numbers are correct, then this is a huge victory for the Conservatives — and for
Johnson. A man widely thought of as a joke has managed to win and win big. He has made promises to the country, not least to get Brexit done, that mantra repeated with deadening
determination throughout the entire campaign. After all, this was the Brexit election. The question for Johnson, and for the country, is whether he is able to make good on any of the
promises he has made. When the country learns that the clear commitments made on the campaign trail will take years of hard bargaining to enact, Johnson could find the national mood turn
against him very sharply. Has he over-promised? And Corbyn? If these numbers are correct, then any self-respecting political leader would step down. But Corbyn is not like other leaders — he
is a product of movement, and the party structures that put him in charge of Labour will still be there even if he goes. A fight to replace him would be savage. But this is Johnson’s night.
It seems now that nobody can touch him and Britain will head towards a hard, brisk Brexit. He’s been unconventional — sacked tens of his own MPs, lost in the Supreme Court, shunned Andrew
Neil, brought an enormously divisive advisor into No10 — and yet it seems he’s won. It’s his Britain now. There will be no one else to blame. From here on in, it’s all on him.