AILSA CHANG, HOST:
Polls have just closed in the United Kingdom, where voters are electing a new Parliament and Prime Minister. In recent days, polls have been predicting a wipeout for ruling conservatives - possibly of historic proportions - and a swing to the center-left Labour Party. But it all comes down to what voters actually do on election day, and that's why NPR's Lauren Frayer has spent the day at polling stations in London and joins us now. Hey, Lauren.
LAUREN FRAYER, BYLINE: Hi, Ailsa.
CHANG: Hi. OK, so we don't quite have official results yet, right?
FRAYER: Not results, but exit polls have just been released. I'm standing on the sidewalk outside BBC headquarters, where they have just projected exit poll numbers onto the side of the building here, and the crowd erupted in cheers. There are giant pictures of the candidates, including Keir Starmer. He's the head of the center-left Labour Party, and exit polls show he will be the next British Prime Minister.
The BBC is also projecting tallies for seats in Parliament, and it looks like a landslide - more than three times more seats for Labour than the Conservatives. This would be the first Labour victory in nearly 20 years...
CHANG: Wow.
FRAYER: ...Since Tony Blair in 2005. It would be the worst showing for conservatives ever in their more-than-a-century-and-a-half history.
Now, I have to caution, these are exit polls. They're not official results, but they do tend to be reliable. Ballot counting will continue through the night here, and we expect to get official results around dawn here.
CHANG: Dawn - OK. And as you've been talking to voters all through today, what are they telling you?
FRAYER: There's, like, one thing that I've been hearing over and over from voters at polling stations today. And here are three of the people I spoke with.
NICK BAILEY: Been pretty awful. Everything - nothing is working. Everything is going wrong.
SULTANA BEGUM: Yeah. It's falling apart under Conservative, but...
FRAYER: Sir?
JOHN BAYES: You want the truth?
FRAYER: Yeah.
BAYES: It's in a mess, and that's being polite. It's in a mess.
FRAYER: That was Nick Bailey, Sultana Begum and John Bayes. They're from different backgrounds, different generations. They have different politics. But they all said, like, uncannily, the same thing - that they feel like Britain is in decline, especially since Brexit, which polls show most Britons now regret. And they are punishing the ruling party that presided over it.
(CHEERING)
CHANG: (Inaudible) to become the next British Prime Minister?
FRAYER: Keir Starmer, the leader of the Labour Party - he is a human rights lawyer and a prosecutor. He's also a knight. His title is Sir Keir Starmer. He's been the leader of opposition in Parliament for the past four years. And he's inheriting a state that's been hobbled by years of austerity and, voters say, mismanagement. I spoke to David Willetts. He's a conservative member of the House of Lords.
DAVID WILLETTS: Keir Starmer faces, I think, a very acute dilemma. Expectations of big change are running very high. On the other hand, his policy list is really very modest and cautious. He doesn't want to be accused of increasing taxes. He seems to be reluctant to make any big promises on public services. So expectations are likely to run far ahead.
CHANG: OK, so the honeymoon period for the next prime minister is probably going to be really short.
FRAYER: Yeah.
CHANG: Real quick, Lauren, what happens next? Vote counting says it's going to go through the night.
FRAYER: Yeah, so ballots are still being counted, but it looks like it will be Starmer, who will go meet King Charles tomorrow morning, be asked to form a government, and then he'll set about doing that. He will literally move into 10 Down (ph) Street tomorrow afternoon. Things move very quickly here.
CHANG: Oh. That is NPR's Lauren Frayer in London. Thank you so much, Lauren.
FRAYER: You're welcome. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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