UK election: Exit poll forecasts PM Boris Johnson’s victory

Prime
Minister Boris Johnson’s Conservative Party will win an enormous victory in
Britain’s election with a parliamentary majority of 86 seats, an exit poll
showed on Thursday, empowering him to deliver Brexit on Jan. 31.

The survey
showed Johnson’s Conservatives would win a landslide of 368 seats, more than
enough for a very comfortable majority in the 650-seat parliament and the
biggest Conservative national election win since Margaret Thatcher’s 1987
triumph.

If the exit
poll is accurate and Johnson’s bet on a snap election has paid off, he will
move swiftly to confirm the Brexit deal he struck with the European Union so
that the United Kingdom can leave on Jan. 31 – 10 months later than initially
planned.

Official
results will be declared over the next seven hours.

John
McDonnell, the second most powerful man in the Labour Party, said the election
had been dominated by Brexit which has divided the country since 2016.