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<figure class="wp-block-image size-full"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="728" height="464" src="https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/S5ZSZFJYLBIXNPDNSK3FB3QCRA.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-416757" srcset="https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/S5ZSZFJYLBIXNPDNSK3FB3QCRA.jpg 728w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/S5ZSZFJYLBIXNPDNSK3FB3QCRA-300x191.jpg 300w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/S5ZSZFJYLBIXNPDNSK3FB3QCRA-141x90.jpg 141w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 728px) 100vw, 728px" /><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Representations of virtual currency Bitcoin are seen in this picture illustration taken taken March 13, 2020. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/File Photo</figcaption></figure>



Cryptocurrencies plunged on Friday as investors focused on the payout of nearly $9 billion to users of collapsed bitcoin exchange Mt. Gox.



As of 10:50 a.m. London time, bitcoin’s price slumped nearly 6% in 24 hours to hit $54,500.53, marking the first time it’s traded below the $55,000 level since Feb. 27, according to data from CoinGecko.



Rival token ether sank around 9% to $2,872.10.



Altogether, the entire cryptocurrency market has shed more than $170 billion in combined market capitalization in the last 24 hours, according to CoinGecko data.



On Friday, the trustee for the Mt. Gox bankruptcy estate, Nobuaki Kobayashi, said in a statement that it had begun making repayments in bitcoin and bitcoin cash to some of the creditors through a number of designated crypto exchanges.



Mt. Gox’s trustee didn’t specify how much money had been transferred to these exchanges.



He noted that the remaining funds would be returned to creditors once a series of conditions is met, including confirming the validity of registered accounts and completing discussions between the trustee and the designated crypto exchanges.



The trustee is still working to ensure repayments “can be made safely and securely,” Kobayashi wrote, urging “eligible rehabilitation creditors to wait for a while.”



It comes after a small amount of bitcoin was moved out of wallets associated with Mt. Gox, according to blockchain analytics firm Arkham Intelligence, with the largest movement being a $24 transfer to the Japanese crypto exchange Bitbank.



Bitbank is among the recipients listed to support repayments.



Recently, the world’s largest cryptocurrency has been pressured by news of collapsed bitcoin exchange Mt. Gox preparing the distribution of around $9 billion worth of coins to users. This dumping of coins onto the market is expected to lead to some significant selling action.



Also pressuring crypto markets, the German government on Thursday sold roughly 3,000 bitcoins — worth approximately $175 million as of today’s prices — from a 50,000-bitcoin pile seized in connection with the movie piracy operation Movie2k, according to Arkham Intelligence.



Arkham, which is tracking Germany’s bitcoin wallet, noted the government still holds more than 40,000 bitcoins worth over $2 billion.

S5ZSZFJYLBIXNPDNSK3FB3QCRA

Over $170 billion wiped off cryptocurrencies as market tanks on Mt. Gox bitcoin payout fears

Britain’s new PM to give speech at Downing Street

<figure class="wp-block-image size-full"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="2048" height="1365" src="https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/GettyImages-2160673037-scaled.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-504199" srcset="https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/GettyImages-2160673037-scaled.jpg 2048w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/GettyImages-2160673037-300x200.jpg 300w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/GettyImages-2160673037-820x547.jpg 820w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/GettyImages-2160673037-135x90.jpg 135w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/GettyImages-2160673037-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/GettyImages-2160673037-1536x1024.jpg 1536w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 2048px) 100vw, 2048px" /><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">LONDON, ENGLAND &#8211; JULY 05: Labour Leader Keir Starmer celebrates winning the 2024 General Election with a speech at Tate Modern on July 05, 2024 in London, England. Labour is on course to win a landslide victory in the 2024 General Election. Starmer addresses the nation promising Country first, Party second. (Photo by Ricky Vigil/Getty Images)</figcaption></figure>



LONDON — The U.K.’s opposition Labour Party won a huge parliamentary majority in the country’s general election, unseating the incumbent Conservatives after 14 years.



Early on Friday morning, Labour passed the threshold needed to govern alone as outgoing PM Rishi Sunak conceded defeat. Keir Starmer, leader of the center-left Labour, will become the country’s next prime minister and declared victory in the early hours.



“We did it,” he said, addressing his Labour colleagues. “You campaigned for it, you fought for it — and now it has arrived &#8230; change begins now.”



Some projections show Labour will gain its second-largest majority after former Prime Minister&nbsp;Tony Blair’s 179-seat majority in 1997.



Millions of people across England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland on Thursday voted for their local representatives in the 650-member House of Commons, the U.K.’s lower house of parliament. Ballots are still being counted, with constituencies announcing their winning candidate as soon as votes are tallied.



Here are the seats that have been declared so far:



<figure class="wp-block-image size-full"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="794" height="746" src="https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/UK-Elections-Graph.png" alt="" class="wp-image-504197" srcset="https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/UK-Elections-Graph.png 794w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/UK-Elections-Graph-300x282.png 300w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/UK-Elections-Graph-96x90.png 96w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/UK-Elections-Graph-768x722.png 768w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 794px) 100vw, 794px" /></figure>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-what-labour-s-win-means-for-uk-markets">What Labour’s win means for UK markets</h2>



The arrival of a new Labour government hasn’t moved markets all that much yet but analysts expect U.K. assets to become more attractive from here on out.



In a note Friday, analysts at Jefferies said, despite concerns raised by a strong showing for the right-wing Reform UK Party, the Labour Party’s U.K. election win would help make the U.K. appear “relatively stable.”



This, in combination with regulatory reform, “could raise the attractiveness of UK assets,” Jefferies’ analysts wrote in a research note.



Beata Manthey, European equity strategist at Citi, noted that history shows U.K. markets tend to trade flat on average six months after Labour wins, but “meaningfully higher one year later.”



“On a relative basis, the UK market has tended to underperform 1-2 months after Labour wins, while tallying decent relative performance 12m post-election,” Manthey said.



“The domestically oriented FTSE 250 has typically outperformed the FTSE 100 following Labour victories. Sterling and Gilts will be key to watch,” she added.



“FTSE 250 over FTSE 100 is our preferred post-election trade.”



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<figure class="wp-block-image size-full"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="2048" height="1341" src="https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/107357803-1705027006499-AP24012015065200-scaled.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-503927" srcset="https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/107357803-1705027006499-AP24012015065200-scaled.jpg 2048w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/107357803-1705027006499-AP24012015065200-300x196.jpg 300w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/107357803-1705027006499-AP24012015065200-820x537.jpg 820w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/107357803-1705027006499-AP24012015065200-137x90.jpg 137w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/107357803-1705027006499-AP24012015065200-768x503.jpg 768w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/107357803-1705027006499-AP24012015065200-1536x1005.jpg 1536w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 2048px) 100vw, 2048px" /><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Britain’s Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, left, and U.S. President Joe Biden speak at the start of the meeting of the North Atlantic Council (NAC) during the NATO Summit in Vilnius, Lithuania, July 11, 2023. Paul Ellis | AP</figcaption></figure>



The U.K. and U.S. have a lot in common — a shared language, history, democratic ideals and values. But when it comes to politics, us Brits do things very differently from our American friends.



Those differences are plain to see as election campaigns ramp up in the U.K. and U.S., ahead of the British vote on July 4 and the U.S. ballot on Nov. 5.



Of course, our political systems encompass different electoral procedures and processes, but there are other nuances to how the Brits and Americans do political races differently. Here are a handful of them:



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-1-campaigns"><a></a>1) Campaigns</h2>



By the time a presidential election takes place in the United States, the electorate will have already endured months of seemingly endless electioneering — with the entire election campaign process from candidacies and the campaign trail to the actual presidential election and inauguration taking up to two years.



In the U.K., the time frame between a prime minister calling a general election to the actual vote is just six weeks. American readers might, very reasonably, read that and weep.



With such a tight window in which to win voters’ support, the leaders of Britain’s political parties dash about the U.K. on campaign “battle buses” as they try to visit as many constituencies as possible to persuade voters to elect the local party candidate as a member of Parliament (MP).



The party that wins the most seats in the House of Commons (the British Parliament) usually forms the new government and its leader becomes prime minister. It sounds simple, and usually is, unless there’s a “hung parliament” in which no political party wins a majority of seats. In that case, the largest party can either form&nbsp;a minority government or enter into a&nbsp;coalition government of two or more parties.



Bobby Duffy, director of the Policy Institute at King’s College London, told CNBC that there are many historical and structural differences between the countries when it comes to politics, and reasons why American campaigns are so much longer.



“The hugeness of the election in the U.S. is a function of the massive amounts of money at play to some degree. You do have to have these long periods of fundraising alongside campaigning and we just have completely different rules and structures around that.”



<h2 class="wp-block-heading"><a></a>2) Election spending and ads</h2>



Money is certainly one of biggest differences between U.K. general elections and U.S. presidential elections. Stateside, billions of dollars can be fundraised and spent on campaign activities and political ads, far above that spent in the U.K. (after all, the parties in Britain only have six weeks in which to spend the money!).



For a Brit, the money raised and spent by Republicans and Democrats during election campaigns is eye-watering. In April, the U.S. Federal Election Commission released data that showed that during the first 12 months of the 2024 election cycle (covering 2023), presidential candidates collected $374.9 million and disbursed $270.8 million, while political parties received $684.5 million and spent $595 million, and political action committees raised $3.7 billion and spent $3.1 billion, according to campaign finance reports filed with the commission.



A number of political action committees, or PACs, raise money and make direct contributions to candidates’ campaigns or parties. In the case of “super PACs,” committees raise and spend an unlimited amount of money in support of their preferred candidates, often funding large-scale ad campaigns.



In the U.K., meanwhile, the Electoral Commission sets out strict rules on spending limits for political parties contesting the general election in Great Britain (made up of England, Wales and Scotland). In England, for example, the limit is whichever the greater is of £1,458,440 ($1,845,098) or £54,010 times the number of seats the party is contesting in each part of Britain. Parties can be fined, and often are, for breaching those limits.



In the U.K., political advertising&nbsp;on TV and radio is not allowed, so U.K. voters are subjected to the somewhat quaint “party political broadcasts” during election campaigns. That’s where parties are allocated broadcast slots, free of charge, on radio and TV channels in which they can set out their election pledges. The broadcasts are sporadic, however, and easy to miss, unlike the thousands of ads in the U.S.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading"><a></a>3) ‘We don’t do God’</h2>



You will never hear a British politician — at least not a mainstream one — mentioning God in a political speech or campaign. Ever.



Religion, in general, is kept separate from politics in the U.K., a multifaith country but also one in which religious belief is declining, particularly among younger generations. Just under half (49%) of Britons surveyed in 2022 said they believed in God — down from three-quarters (75%) in 1981, according to a study by King’s College London published last year.



While it’s common to hear U.S. politicians proclaim “God bless America,” jaws would drop in the U.K. if a British politician made such an expression of faith in a political speech. Political aides say the subject is better left alone.



Alastair Campbell, who served as the Labour Party’s director of communications and strategy under former Prime Minister Tony Blair, reportedly interjected with the now famous phrase&nbsp;“we don’t do God,” when Blair, then a member of the Church of England, was asked about his faith while in power.



On another occasion, Blair was reportedly keen on ending a speech with the phrase “God bless Britain” but later said he was advised against it, noting that “one of the civil servants said in a very po-faced way ‘I just remind you prime minister, this is not America’ in this very disapproving tone, so I gave up the idea.” Blair converted to Catholicism on leaving office in 2007.



An aversion to mixing politics and personal belief still runs deep in British public life, Dan Stevens, professor of politics at Exeter University, told CNBC, unlike in the U.S.



“They’re just a much more religious society than we are. The U.K., along with much of Western Europe, is just so secular it’s just not even something worth talking about. Whereas in America, although it is secularizing, particularly among younger people &#8230; there is still this need for political candidates, including people like Donald Trump, to espouse some kind of religion to earn the electorate’s trust.”



<h2 class="wp-block-heading"><a></a>4) Age is just a number</h2>



U.K. voters have been hearing a lot in the press about how U.S. election debates have focused on incumbent President Joe Biden’s age. Indeed, British politicians look like whippersnappers when compared with the 81-year-old president and 78-year-old Republican candidate Trump.



Incumbent British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak is a youngster in comparison, at a mere 44 years old while Keir Starmer, the leader of the Labour Party and, polls suggest, the man likely to become the next prime minister, is “only” 61.



“There are so much older candidates in the U.S.,” the Policy Institute’s Duffy told CNBC, describing it to a “gerontocracy trend” in which society is governed by old people. “It’s very different from around the world where we’re actually seeing a decline in the age of world leaders.”



In the U.S., the age of the candidates reflects the decades it takes to build “political capital and connections,” Duffy said. With support for Biden shaken by his poor performance in a televised debate with Trump, it’s that political capital and connections that appear to be keeping Biden’s election campaign alive.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading"><a></a>5) ‘Culture wars’</h2>



Another point of difference in British elections, and politics in general, is that “morality issues” are not prominent points of debate, dissent or divergence. Unlike the U.S., where the abortion debate, gun control and gay marriage are sources of contention, those debates are not hot topics in the U.K. where abortion is legal, gun ownership is rare and heavily restricted (critics would argue the U.K. has a knife crime problem instead), and gay marriage is (aside from among some members of the clergy) uncontested.



Similarly, “identity politics” and “culture wars” — the umbrella term for conflicts between often opposed political groupings with different cultural values and beliefs — are not so prominent in the U.K. But the U.K. does have our “moments” — the topics of immigration, transgender rights, the U.K.’s relationship with the European Union (yes, Brexit is still “a thing” eight years after a referendum on EU membership) and assisted dying are hot topics where divisions are evident among the British press and public. Still, such issues are seen as “more of a personal rather than a party issue” in the U.K., according to John Curtice, a top U.K. polling expert who has studied British social attitudes extensively.



“Moral issues of life and death are indeed taken out of our party politics, but other aspects of the argument between social liberals and social conservatives are not taken out, and it’s become more important,” he told CNBC.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading"><a></a>6) ‘Absurd’ diversions</h2>



British political experts note that, unlike in the U.S., where broad political debates tend to remain the key focus, U.K. election campaigns can see more minor or fringe issues dominate the short election campaign.



A betting scandal has erupted in Britain in recent weeks, for example, after several candidates for the Conservative Party, and a candidate for the opposing Labour Party, were found to have placed bets on the date of the general election before it was officially announced, and its outcome, leading to accusations of impropriety in public office. It’s uncertain what amounts were staked, and those accused deny wrongdoing, though investigations have been launched by the U.K.’s gambling watchdog and the police.



Before the gambling debacle, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s decision to skip the main D-Day commemorations in France also caused a massive stir in the British press, who questioned his judgment. Such “diversions” during British election campaigns are common, and often pertain to issues that start as “matters of principle” that are then “taken to absurd lengths,” according to Stevens.



“There’s a tendency for our campaigns to veer off in these strange directions where we just lose the big picture,” Stevens said. “I don’t think that happens in America where the stakes are just higher,” he said.



“There, the stakes are just massive.”

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No God, no big ads and no age debate: The UK election race is very different to America’s

<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="820" height="462" src="https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/108001628-1720062067145-gettyimages-814141990-kidsunset-820x462.jpeg" alt="" class="wp-image-503924" srcset="https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/108001628-1720062067145-gettyimages-814141990-kidsunset-820x462.jpeg 820w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/108001628-1720062067145-gettyimages-814141990-kidsunset-300x169.jpeg 300w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/108001628-1720062067145-gettyimages-814141990-kidsunset-160x90.jpeg 160w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/108001628-1720062067145-gettyimages-814141990-kidsunset-768x432.jpeg 768w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/108001628-1720062067145-gettyimages-814141990-kidsunset.jpeg 929w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 820px) 100vw, 820px" /><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">A little boy with his mother and grandmother, watch the sunset scenery at Beijing international airport.  Zhang Peng | Lightrocket | Getty Images</figcaption></figure>



China’s population is shrinking, and the demographic shift will ultimately hurt its economy, shrink the labor force and put pressure on fiscal policy.



“The working age population [in China] will fall so rapidly over the next decade, that the Chinese economy will need to deal with 1% drag in GDP growth per year for next 10 years,” Darren Tay, head of Asia country risk at BMI Country Risk &amp; Industry Analysis, told “Squawk Box Asia” in June, referring to estimates gathered by evaluating world population data released by the United Nations.



“The fiscal strain as a result of ageing is immediate and concerning,” the Economist Intelligence Unit has warned.



“Economic growth hinges on productivity, capital accumulation and labour inputs. The negative effect of an adverse demographic landscape will manifest primarily through a shrinking workforce,” according to the report published in January.



Raising the retirement age is “one of the few viable options” to maintain long-term fiscal balance, the EIU said.



“Our calculations suggest that&nbsp;if the retirement age is raised to 65 by 2035, the pension budget shortfall could be reduced by&nbsp;20% and received net pension can be increased by 30%, suggesting relief of both government and household burden,” according to the report.



Birth rates are falling around the world as women choose to have children later, or not at all.



Fertility rates have halved across OECD countries — some of the world’s richest nations — falling from about 3.3 children per woman in 1960 to about 1.5 children per woman in 2022, according to the OECD, or Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.



“This is significantly below the ‘replacement level’ of 2.1 children per woman needed to keep population constant in the absence of migration,” according to the&nbsp;June&nbsp;report.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-china-s-shrinking-population"><a></a>China’s shrinking population</h2>



China’s population fell for a second consecutive year in 2023 to 1.409 billion people — dropping by 2.08 million from the previous year, according to data from the National Bureau of Statistics of China.



That’s more than the population decline of about 850,000 in 2022 — the first year deaths outnumbered births in the country since the early 1960s during the Great Famine.



“This is a consequence of the one-child policy [set] in place [in] the 1980s,” Erica Tay, director of macro research at Maybank, told CNBC.



China’s population is expected to shrink to 1.317 billion by 2050, and drop by nearly half — to 732 million — by 2100.



Fertility rate in the country is dropping more quickly than its regional peers like South Korea and Japan, Tianchen Xu, a senior economist at The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), told CNBC.



He said the three countries are disproportionately impacted by&nbsp;a rapidly aging population,&nbsp;largely due to&nbsp;improved standards of living,&nbsp;which&nbsp;have&nbsp;a “very strong inverse relationship with fertility rates.”



China, in particular, has been “growing at a very high rate for nearly three decades.” and its economic expansion has been “rapid and extended,” he added.



The country’s&nbsp;welfare system has also “lagged” and fiscal support for childbearing is “quite low by international comparison,” according to Xu.



Surging home prices are not helping.



“The government has largely been incapable of managing the significant rising housing costs,” according to Xu, who pointed out that as housing becomes increasingly costly, people may find it difficult to purchase homes and delay starting a family.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading"><a></a>Falling birth rates</h2>



The rapid economic expansion seen in recent decades in developed nations has brought about rising income levels and the broadening of educational and career opportunities for women.



These improved conditions have led to a greater opportunity cost for having children, Xu said.



“In more developed societies, the tendency is that parents face a much higher cost of raising children, and that tends to be a deterrent to having [them],” said BMI’s Tay.



“The more developed an economy is, the more skills the actors in the economy have to have, and thus, the required investment in each [child] rises by that amount,” he said.



The work culture in Asia can also&nbsp;play a part.



“Among the Asian countries, there’s the entrenched mindset of working long hours,” said Xu, which is “particularly an issue in China, South Korea&#8230; [and] other parts of East and Southeast Asia.”



“These countries are where the aggregate working hours are the longest in the world,” and as a result, workers have less time to build a family, Xu told CNBC.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading"><a></a>Shrinking workforce</h2>



A decline in fertility rate puts pressure on the economy and&nbsp;the society at large&nbsp;as the working population shrinks.



“A country’s birth rates will translate into its working age population growth, some two decades down the road,” said Tay from Maybank..



Additionally, falling fertility rates can impact the ratio of elderly folks who need support from younger generations, which can put “excessive burdens on a country’s health care and pension systems,” Maybank’s Tay told CNBC.



Ultimately, the&nbsp;burden on younger&nbsp;generations will grow as they need to care not only for their own children, but for their elderly parents as well.



This demographic shift in parts of Asia is a structural issue that will require “determined and holistic government effort,” on both fiscal and monetary policy, she said.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading"><a></a>China’s policy shifts</h2>



In China, policymakers have been putting a big emphasis on “productivity growth,” Xu told CNBC.



“They have [seen] that there’s a very big decline in the labor contribution to GDP, [which] cannot be mitigated via any sort of policy intervention in the short term,” he said. “That’s why they have been focusing on their productivity growth.”



The country has invested heavily into shifting to digital solutions and developing technologies such automation and advanced chips, said Xu, with the goal of making traditional industries more efficient, and overall, improving productivity.



Looking ahead, Chinese policymakers are encouraged to do more about the labor environment. “That probably entails tighter enforcement of the labor law and promoting work-life balance,” said Xu.



Economists also agree that Chinese policymakers should also work to raise the retirement age in the country, create more aggressive tax rebates for costs associated with child-rearing, and step-up its efforts in constructing affordable housing in the country.



Despite the slowdown in growth expected in China due to its demographics issue, the country’s GDP has grown an average of 9% per year since 1978, according to the World Bank.



Ultimately, “the fact remains that growth of even around 3% would not be, by any stretch of the imagination, a disaster for the Chinese economy,” Tay from BMI told CNBC.



“If they would continue to grow at that pace, which probably would be more sustainable, the average Chinese citizen would be in real terms, better off in income by 13% by 2033,” he added. “So living standards would still continue to rise.”

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China faces economic headwinds as it grapples with an aging — and shrinking — population

Influencers have changed the ad industry. Now what?

<figure class="wp-block-image size-full"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="929" height="523" src="https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/108001664-1720074872647-gettyimages-2159858100-UK_STARMER.jpeg" alt="" class="wp-image-503819" srcset="https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/108001664-1720074872647-gettyimages-2159858100-UK_STARMER.jpeg 929w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/108001664-1720074872647-gettyimages-2159858100-UK_STARMER-300x169.jpeg 300w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/108001664-1720074872647-gettyimages-2159858100-UK_STARMER-820x462.jpeg 820w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/108001664-1720074872647-gettyimages-2159858100-UK_STARMER-160x90.jpeg 160w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/108001664-1720074872647-gettyimages-2159858100-UK_STARMER-768x432.jpeg 768w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 929px) 100vw, 929px" /><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Keir Starmer, leader of the Labour Party, campaigns ahead of the general election, in Redditch, UK, on Wednesday, July 3, 2024. Bloomberg | Bloomberg | Getty Images</figcaption></figure>



LONDON — The U.K. heads to the ballot box on Thursday, as the incumbent Conservative Party seeks to defy months of polls that suggest it will suffer a historic defeat at the hands of the center-left Labour Party.



Prime Minister Rishi Sunak announced the vote six weeks ago, taking politicians and the public alike by surprise. Most had expected the election to take place later in the year, giving more time for the recent decline in inflation and anticipated reduction in interest rates to hit voters’ wallets.



A number of smaller parties are vying to win seats in the 650-member House of Commons, the U.K.’s lower house of parliament, including the Liberal Democrats, Greens, Scottish National Party, Plaid Cymru, the Democratic Unionist Party and Nigel Farage’s Reform UK. Votes will be cast across England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.



Within the U.K. political system, a party increasing its share of the popular vote does not necessarily translate to winning more parliamentary seats — and it is all but guaranteed that either the Conservatives or Labour, led by Keir Starmer, will receive the reins of power. That could either be through winning an absolute majority or by forming a coalition government.



Convention says the leader of the party with the most seats in the Commons becomes prime minister



Political surveys have for nearly two years pointed to a resounding Labour victory, even though the party will require a historic gain of nearly 13% in the national vote to win even a narrow parliamentary majority, according to Hannah Bunting, lecturer in quantitative British politics at the University of Exeter. That would be a bigger swing than the one achieved by Labour’s Tony Blair over John Major in 1997.



A strong Labour lead was reinforced in a major aggregate poll released by YouGov earlier this week.



However, politicos and Labour itself caution that no outcome is guaranteed and that the polling can be inaccurate. More than 100 seats are considered very close to call, including those currently held by high-profile Conservatives, including Finance Minister Jeremy Hunt and Sunak himself.



The Thursday ballot is the first U.K. general election since 2019, when then-Conservative leader Boris Johnson clinched the party’s biggest majority win since 1987 over Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour. That was on a platform promising to complete the “Brexit” process of leaving the European Union, which had become mired in a political gridlock.



Johnson’s administration was then marked by several public scandals, including the “Partygate” case in which senior politicians broke lockdown rules during the Covid-19 pandemic, leading to his reluctant resignation in July 2022.



He was succeeded by Liz Truss, who lasted just 44 days in office before resigning over the so-called mini-budget crisis, which rocked financial markets.



Sunak, a former finance minister for the Conservative Party, has since overseen a period of relative political stability; but one in which the country has been grappling with a severe cost of living crisis and sluggish economic growth.



The legacy of 14 years of Conservative rule — with the party winning power through a coalition arrangement under David Cameron in 2010 — has been a key theme on the campaign trail.



Sunak and Starmer have sought to convince the public that their party can address critical issues spanning housing, the National Health Service and defense.



Sunak claimed during a debate in early June that Labour’s policies would lead to a £2,000 ($2,553.73) tax rise for “every working family” over the course of the next parliament. Starmer said the figure was “made-up,” while the party has laid out tax increases targeting only specific groups.



The public has from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. local time to cast a vote for their local parliamentary candidate, shortly after which a closely-watched exit poll will be released.



Ballots will be counted overnight, with a result expected out on Friday morning.

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