-Published: Friday, December 13, 2019-




By the A.M. Costa Rica staff

Conservatives in the United Kingdom delivered a crushing defeat to the Labour Party in an election Thursday that seems to give them a majority in the lower house of Parliament.

The election gives Prime Minister Boris Johnson a green light to take the country out of the European Union after years of stalemate.

The vote totals Friday updated at 06:00 CST, showed Conservatives won 364 seats to Labour's 203. Labour not win enough for a majority of 326 seats in the 650-seat house.

Final vote totals are expected to be announced today, and the new Parliament meets Tuesday to swear in members.

Scottish National party won 48 seats. A handful of other parties shared the rest of the seats.

Johnson styled the campaign as a second referendum on the UK leaving the European Union. Jeremy Corbyn, the Labour leader, stressed more social issues. In the last election Conservatives held 42 percent of the seats and did not have a clear majority. The Labour Party held 40% of the seats.

June 23, 2016, 17.4 million UK voters went to the polls for the vote on Brexit, and nearly 52% chose to leave the European Union. Since then, the Parliament has been deadlocked, in part because some sectors believe they will suffer a financial loss without membership in the EU. Labour has generally opposed leaving the union, and former prime minister Theresa May, a Conservative, could not rally enough support to win approval for several exit deals negotiated with the EU leadership in Brussels, Belgium. She was forced to step down, and Johnson became prime minister. He was he who called for the unusual December elections.

If the current returns hold up, Johnson must first rally enough parliamentary votes to keep his promise to leave the European Union and then must negotiate a trade deal with Brussels or take the country out of the union without any deal.

Voters in Scotland rejected Brexit, and the vote is likely to fuel more calls for Scottish independence.

The British government has been active around the world making trade deals in the event the nation left the EU. Some opponents of leaving the EU said they feared a recession. Still the British pound gained strength as it appeared Conservatives would win an majority, perhaps due to the likely elimination of uncertainty.

One problem has been the trade relationship with the Republic of Ireland, which shares the island with the British-controlled Northern Ireland. The republic is a EU member, and Johnson wants a special trade agreement because of the large amount of trade between the two regions.

In addition to Labour, one of the apparent losers was Nigel Farage’s Brexit Party, zero setas, that did not seem to be getting the support its members expected.

As Labour candidates lost in usually secure districts, some called on the party's leader, Corbyn, to resign. He said later in the evening that he would resign the leadership of his party before the next general election. He did manage to keep his seat in north London.