• UK prosecutors pressured Sweden not to drop Assange extradition in 2013
• UK prosecutors confess to destroying key emails in Julian Assange case
• Extradition confidentiality: UK tribunal refuses to release Assange files
• The UK's covert role in Julian Assange's detention

Tories Crushed In Landslide (Low Turnout) UK Election Victory For Labour, Farage's Reform Party 'Real Winners'

Update (0730ET): As exit polls suggested, the Labour Party won a landslide victory in the UK election, dramatically reshaping the political landscape after the Conservatives imploded following 14 years of rule that became defined by turmoil.

With only two results outstanding, Keir Starmer's Labour took 412 of the 650 seats in the House of Commons, the most since Tony Blair's 1997 triumph (second largest since WWII) and a remarkable turnaround less than five years since being trounced at the last election. The Tories garnered 121 seats, their worst ever performance.

Sky News reported that, overall, he got a lower proportion than Blair, and even lower than Corbyn; the Labour leader whom he worked under, and whom he conspired to oust with the help of Zionist linked groups, with baseless 'antisemitic' smears.

However, Labour's victory was based on the backing of only 34% of voters (the lowest-ever winning share) as the populist Reform UK party led by Brexit campaigner Nigel Farage took chunks of the right-wing Conservative vote across the country.

There's a significant amount of criticism online regarding the UK's archaic 'First Past the Post' system, and there's a dispute as to just what proportion of votes Labour actually got:

"This looks more like an election the Conservatives have lost than one Labour have won," pollster Sir John Curtice told the BBC.

Indeed; one poll shows just that:

Indeed, as Morning Porridge's Bill Blain wrote this morning, Labour got 3 times as many seats, but did not win - the Conservatives lost, and lost badly, punished by the electorate. Reform were the real winners - although they only got 4 seats.

The rise of Reform, the UK's most successful populist party, will be the critical factor to consider in terms of the UK's future political slant. Addressing the very real concerns of Reform Voters should be at the forefront of all the traditional parties' thinking and policy decisions ahead of the next election. How do they claim back disaffected populist voters? By addressing their concerns. [...]

From a markets/economy perspective, Goldman Sachs sees only modest impacts from Labour's landslide win, providing political stability and marginally higher growth.

[...]

However, as TS Lombard's Christopher Granville , MD, Global Political Research, highlighted in a note this morning:

"The Labour Party's expected big election win lacks the political seed capital typically required to implement the kind of structural reforms that might improve the UK's long - run economic performance.

The challenge laid down by this result was summed up by the new prime minister Keir Starmer in his victory speech as a "battle for trust" .

This was echoed in the declaration by the incoming Finance Minister Rachel Reeves that investors should now regard the UK as a "safe haven" . Her campaign mantra of stability as the antidote to "Tory chaos" and the key to dynamism may be borne out by an uptick in business investment and consumer confidence on the back of reduced uncertainty. But as the former BoE Chief Economist Andy Haldane has remarked , this kind of "growth fairy" cannot be a sustainable substitute for a growth strategy hemmed in by Reeves's commitment to stick to existing fiscal rules."

Which brings us to the last, but perhaps most important fact: turnout was just 60%, the lowest for more than 20 years.

That suggests a rejection of the Conservatives, but also a lingering discontent over the traditional duopoly in British politics.

In his resignation speech, outgoing PM Sunak said:

"To the country, I would like to say first and foremost, I am sorry. I have given this job my all, but you have sent a clear signal that the government of the United Kingdom must change."

"I have heard your anger and disappointment and I take responsibility for this loss."

It was clear to a number of analysts, months ago, that Starmer was the establishment candidate. And the election campaigns and legacy media coverage reflected this intent.

And incoming PM Starmer was managing expectations:

"I don't promise you it will be easy," Starmer said in his victory speech early Friday.

"Changing a country is not like flicking a switch."

Except when it comes to lockdowns - which Starmer supported with tyrannical gusto - and then it's possible.

The result, according to the FT, is "momentous for Britain and will resonate around the world" because at a time when right-wing populists are advancing in many countries, political power in the UK has swung back to a liberal, internationalist, centre-left party.

But Labour's victory was projected to be delivered on a smaller share of the vote than the 40% secured by leftwing Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn in his 2017 general election defeat — suggesting the public remains sceptical.

[...]

The UK has been under Conservative rule for 14 years, during which time there have been five prime ministers, with a near catastrophic banking and bond market crisis erupting during the brief reign of Liz Truss. The period was marked by economic austerity, Brexit, the coronavirus pandemic and an energy price shock.

[...]

Far-right parties have performed strongly in recent elections for the European and French parliaments, while in the US, Donald Trump is leading in polls for the presidential race.

Labour's chancellor-in-waiting Rachel Reeves has said she hopes investors will now see the UK as a "safe haven" although once the UK unleashes the next spending spree to fund all the various welfare projects, we fully expect another quick funding crisis and even more QE.

A practice that became infamous following the casino banking collapse of 2008, whereby the government used taxpayers money to bail out the banks to the tune of £800+ billion in QE.

Since then, society has suffered under the governments QE austerity measures - it slashed public spending and hiked taxes - which has resulted in soaring poverty and caused life expectancy to fall for the first time in decades.

Starmer has promised to work with business to stimulate growth, with an agenda that includes planning reform and state investment in green technology. Labour will also pursue a traditional agenda of reforms to worker rights.

As for outgoing PM Sunak, the result is a personal disaster. He chose to hold an early election on July 4 — against the advice of his campaign chief Isaac Levido — and ran an error-strewn six-week attempt to turn around his party's fortunes.

"Change begins now... we spent four and a half years changing the party. This is what it is for: a changed Labour party"

The Hungarian prime minister is in Russia, days after he visited Ukraine

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has begun a surprise visit to Russia, his office has confirmed. His trip comes days after he traveled to Kiev to urge Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky to consider an immediate ceasefire with Moscow and begin peace talks.

While Hungary holds the rotating EU presidency, Orban's visit to Russia for talks has sparked sharp criticism from senior bloc officials, despite the prime minister insisting earlier in the day that he is not representing the union.

Putin has told Orban that he presented his vision of how the conflict can be resolved in a keynote speech at the Foreign Ministry last month and is prepared to discuss its nuances.

The proposal he was referring to was to suspend hostilities immediately after Kiev renounces its bid to join NATO and orders its troops to pull back from all territories claimed by Moscow. Then a comprehensive discussion of a new security architecture in Europe could be held, Putin suggested.

The Ukrainian government has rejected the offer.

Budapest contacted Moscow about a possible visit by the prime minister "literally the day before yesterday," Peskov has told Russian media

Orban informed NATO about his intention to visit Moscow before going there, Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg has confirmed. When he attends the summit of leaders of the US-led military bloc in Washington next week, he will have an opportunity to discuss it with other guests of the summit, the NATO chief told journalists.

The Ukraine crisis was one of the priorities in the "earnest discussions" between Putin and Orban, according to Yury Ushakov, a senior aide to the Russian president. The Hungarian leader did not pass any messages from Ukraine's Vladimir Zelensky during the talks, the official told journalists.

The Ukrainian leader said he had a "negative experience" with truce talks in the past, according to the Hungarian PM

Ukraine's Vladimir Zelensky was not receptive to Budapest's proposal to establish a temporary ceasefire with Russia, according to Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who recently traveled to Kiev.

During his surprise visit on Tuesday, which was his first trip to Ukraine in over a decade, Orban proposed that Zelensky think about "whether it would be possible to take a break. To reach a ceasefire and start negotiations [with Russia] since a quick ceasefire could speed up these negotiations."

Ahead of the trip, Orban stated that he hoped to explain to Zelensky that "time is running out and it is important to establish peace, as hundreds of soldiers are dying on the front every day and we do not see how a solution can be found on the battlefield."

However, following his conversations with Zelensky, Orban told the Swiss Die Weltwoche news outlet, that the Ukrainian leader "had some doubts" about the ceasefire proposal and "didn't like it very much." He explained that Zelensky "had a bad experience in the past with ceasefires, which, in his opinion, did not benefit Ukraine" and because of this believed there were "limits" to what could be achieved.

While Zelensky himself has not yet commented on Hungary's proposal, his deputy chief of staff, Igor Zhovka has stated that Ukraine is not interested in Orban's proposal and claimed that a ceasefire "cannot be considered in isolation."

Instead, Zhovka said that Kiev will continue to seek a resolution to the conflict based on Zelensky's own 'peace formula'. The ten-point program, initially floated in late 2022, calls for a complete withdrawal of Russian forces from territories Kiev claims as its own, reparation payments and an international war crime tribunal for Russia's leadership.

Moscow has vehemently rejected Zelensky's plan as a non-starter and has stressed that any peace talks with Kiev must be based on "realities on the ground."

Meanwhile, Russian President Vladimir Putin has presented his own set of terms for starting ceasefire talks, which include a full Ukrainian withdrawal from the regions that voted to be part of Russia, as well as legally binding guarantees that ensure Ukraine will never become a member of NATO.

• Hungary 'won't ride NATO war train' - Orban (June 2024)
• Hungary's Orban says the quiet part: NATO to establish 'large bases' close to Ukraine (Jun 2024)
• 'West wants to defeat Russia militarily to get access to its wealth' - Hungarian premier Orban (Jun 2024)

"I would like to say that we will not support any significant integration movement of Ukraine towards the EU or NATO until the rights of the Hungarian ethnic community that it had prior to 2015 are restored in Ukraine," the foreign minister told reporters.

Around 150,000 ethnic Hungarians live in modern Ukraine's Transcarpathian Region, just across the border from Hungary. Budapest will not give up on them "under any circumstances," despite pressure from both sides of the Atlantic to do so, Szijjarto added.

He also objected to the convening of the NATO-Ukraine Committee on ministerial level despite Budapest's objections.