LONDON -- Prime Minister Boris Johnson and his Conservative Party appeared to be on course Thursday to win a majority in the British Parliament, according to partial ballot results, a victory that would redraw the lines in British politics and pave the way for the country's exit from the European Union early next year.
The Conservatives were projected to win 365 seats in the House of Commons, versus 196 for the Labor Party, according to the BBC, with about three-quarters of Parliament's seats decided. That would give the Conservatives a 76-seat majority, their largest since that amassed by Margaret Thatcher in 1987.
As the results began flowing in from individual districts, they pointed to a reconfiguration of Britain's political map. The Conservative Party was projected to win dozens of Labor Party seats in the industrial north and Midlands.
Reports about a Conservative victory sent the pound surging in trading against the dollar and euro, reflecting relief that British politics would likely stabilize and Britain would be more likely to have an orderly departure from the EU.
One of Johnson's top aides, Priti Patel, the home secretary, said Thursday evening that the new government would introduce legislation to complete Brexit before Christmas, a lightning-fast schedule. But Britain's departure would still not be likely to happen before Jan. 31, the date agreed upon with the EU.
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Many in Britain grumbled about having to go to the polls again so soon, especially in the weeks leading up to Christmas, when the weather is cold and the days are short.
But the stakes were high. Unlike the 2017 vote, this election clarified Britain's immediate future for the first time since a narrow majority voted to leave the EU in 2016.
In the campaign, Johnson stuck to a disciplined strategy, forswearing the clownishness that has characterized his political career. He avoided scrutiny from the news media, declined to be drawn into debates about issues aside from Brexit and conducted his campaign largely on photo opportunities -- as when he drove a backhoe through a Styrofoam wall emblazoned with the word "Gridlock."
Every single Conservative Party candidate signed a pledge to support Johnson's withdrawal agreement, guaranteeing that if his party won even a one-seat majority, Britain would leave the EU under the terms of that deal.
Once Parliament gives its approval to the withdrawal deal, Johnson's first order of business would be to negotiate a trade agreement with the EU, something many experts predict will be arduous and all but impossible to complete before Britain's next deadline, Jan. 31.
That sets up another potential battle over extending the deadline -- something Johnson has sworn not to do -- or leaving the EU with no deal.
Labor Party lawmaker Barry Gardiner called exit polls "obviously a devastating result for us." He told Sky News, "and as the night goes on, we'll know whether it's as bad as it says or not. It's a deeply depressing prediction."
"It feels like a punch in the stomach," Labor Party lawmaker Jess Phillips tweeted.
Some on the left said it was Brexit, not Labor Party leader Jeremy Corbyn or the party's transformative socialist agenda, that swung against them.
"We had a very similar manifesto to the manifesto at the 2017 election, where with that manifesto and Jeremy's leadership we gained 3 million votes," said Richard Burgon, a Labor Party lawmaker. "The thing which appears to be different this time is it was an election in which Brexit overshadowed traditional party loyalties."
While Johnson campaigned on a "Get Brexit Done" platform, Corbyn took a less decisive stance, proposing a softer Brexit -- plus the guarantee of a second referendum within six months, another national vote on whether to stay or go, with the option to call the whole thing off.
Others said the problem is that Corbyn isn't popular and that the Labor Party's agenda is too radical.
Johnson pushed for the early election -- Britain's first December vote since 1923 -- to try to break the political logjam on Brexit. He campaigned relentlessly on a promise to "Get Brexit done" by getting Parliament to ratify his "oven-ready" divorce deal with the EU and take Britain out of the bloc as scheduled on Jan. 31.
The Conservatives focused much of their energy on trying to win in a "red wall" of working-class towns in central and northern England that have elected Labor Party lawmakers for decades but also voted strongly in 2016 to leave the EU. That effort got a boost when the Brexit Party led by Nigel Farage decided at the last minute not to contest 317 Conservative-held seats to avoid splitting the pro-Brexit vote.
The Labor Party, which is largely but ambiguously pro-EU, faced competition for anti-Brexit voters from the centrist Liberal Democrats, Scottish and Welsh nationalist parties, and the Greens.
On Brexit, the opposition party said it would negotiate a new divorce deal with the EU and then offer voters the choice of leaving the 28-nation bloc on those terms or remaining.
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VOTERS WEIGH IN
While Brexit was dominant in many voters' minds Thursday, it wasn't the only issue they talked about.
Sarah Duncan, 71, a historian and lifelong Conservative voter, was up early to her London polling station, not far from the River Thames. She said this election "was particularly important, because I'm very frightened of far-left-wing government and what Jeremy Corbyn could do for this country."
Duncan confessed that in the June 2016 referendum, "I voted to stay, I didn't vote for Brexit, but I do feel that because the country has voted for Brexit, it's a democratic country, and we should do what the majority said and we should leave, and that's what Boris has stood for." As a leader, she said, "he hasn't had a chance to prove himself yet. We will wait and see."
Nick Symes, 53, a yacht broker, standing in the rain, said he voted for the Labor Party because "it's socialist, it's why I like it, it's redistributive, and it's not Boris Johnson."
Josh Hawketts, 27, an underwriter, voted with the Labor Party in his constituency in Battersea, southwest London. Standing outside a polling station just before sunrise, he explained that his vote was "not for Corbyn or anything like that; it was purely tactical. Just anti-Tory, basically."
In Uxbridge, the suburban London seat that Johnson represents in Parliament, Stefan Hay said he was voting for the prime minister despite his flaws.
"At the end of the day, whether you like him or not, with all of his eccentricities, I think he has leadership ability and I think he is the best man for the job, simple as that," Hay said. "The alternative would be excruciating."
But many voters said they were backing the Labor Party because of its stance on social issues.
"If the Tories [Conservatives] win, this country will just fall apart," said Eleanor Sawbridge Burton, a freelance writer in London. "It will really hit climate change and the [National Health Service]. It feels a bit hopeless."
Information for this article was contributed by Mark Landler and Stephen Castle of The New York Times; by Danica Kirka, Mike Corder, Jill Lawless, Gregory Katz, Sheila Norman-Culp and Jo Kearney of The Associated Press; and by William Booth, Karla Adam, James McAuley, Michael Birnbaum and Quentin Aries of The Washington Post.
A Section on 12/13/2019