British Conservative Party and Prime Minister Boris Johnson gained a parliamentary majority on Friday, winning an election that questioned Johnson’s attempt to “get Brexit done” against opposition parties who tried to postpone or even cancel Britain’s withdrawal from the European Union.
The victory makes Johnson the most electorally popular Tory leader since Margaret Thatcher and is a nightmare for left-wing Labor leader Jeremy Corbyn who has faced calls for his resignation already.
While the results were still rolling in, the Conservatives won 326 of 650 seats in the House of Commons and seemed to be moving to the best election showing of the party since U.S. 1987. It was noticed by President Donald Trump.
“Congratulations on his great WIN to Boris Johnson!,” Trump tweeted early Friday.
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1205368801438707713
The vote was Britain’s first winter general election for almost a century, and in less than five years it was her fourth national ballot.
Although it was not officially directly linked to Brexit, Johnson called the vote two years in advance in an attempt to gain a working majority to break a legislative impasse over the EU departure of the country.
The results showed that the country is as split over Brexit as it was in 2016, three years after Britain narrowly voted to leave the EU. Conservatives made gains in Northern England’s traditional Labor strongholds.
“We’re fed up. It just needs to be over,” said 30-year-old Julie Ames, who is working in a hair salon as she made her way to a polling station south of the capital of Britain on Thursday.
In some polling stations, posts on social media revealed long lines, which is rare at Britain.
The vote comes amid allegations of the main political parties’ disinformation campaigns and falsehoods.
The Labor Party proposed that as part of Johnson’s drive to create a lower-taxed, more lightly regulated post-Brexit Britain, the NHS would be opened up to U.S. drug and engineering companies.
Johnson has consistently denied the assertion, although he had a record of being pro-big business and pro-development when he was London’s 2008-2016 mayor. “Standing behind the NHS is a sort of secular religion for all Britons,” said Richard Whitman, a political scientist at Kent University. Whitman said the vote was a choice between keeping strong economic and political relations with Europe or moving closer to the United States as a result of a trade deal that would be negotiated by the two nations after Brexit.
During his campaign, Johnson focused almost entirely on Brexit.
“We have a deal if we can get a working majority, it’s ready to go,” Johnson said during his final campaign speech in central England before the ballot.
At his final campaign rally this week, Corbyn said, “My message to all those voters who are still undecided is that in this election you can vote for hope.”
Scotland voted overwhelmingly to stay in the EU in 2016, and if Brexit takes place, political leaders threatened to call for an independence vote.