Conservatives are expected to take a wide majority of the vote in the British national elections, according to an exit poll conducted for the BBC, ITV, and Sky News.
The exit poll predicts Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s Tories will win 368 seats in Parliament, an increase of 50 from the 2017 election. The Labour party, led by Jeremy Corbyn, is projected to win 191 seats, 86 fewer than the Tories. The Scottish National party is projected to receive 55 seats while the Liberal Democrats receive 13. The Brexit party, led by Nigel Farage, is not projected to win any seats.
A party needs at least 326 seats to hold a majority of Parliament.
“Thank you to everyone across our great country who voted, who volunteered, who stood as candidates,” Johnson wrote on Twitter. “We live in the greatest democracy in the world.”
The election was called by Johnson, who is seeking to steer the U.K. through its separation from the European Union. It was seen as a sort of referendum on the decision to leave the E.U., taken in a nationwide vote in 2016 and slowed by endless negotiations with Brussels and domestic political turmoil since then.
Johnson has repeatedly tried to force a Brexit deal through Parliament, so far unsuccessfully. He called the election, which Labour head Corbyn supported, in November, after failing to push a deal through by October 31.
Labour Treasury spokesman John McDonnell expressed his concern on the BBC.
“It’s extremely disappointing, we have to be honest about that. We knew it would be tough because Brexit has dominated this election,” McDonnell said. “We thought other issues would cut through and there would be a wider debate. From this evidence, it hasn’t.”