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By Christian Edwards, CNN
London (CNN) — British voters are heading to the polls Thursday for a crucial general election that is being seen as a referendum on 14 years of Conservative rule.
The snap vote, called by Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, is being held months earlier than necessary and caught much of his party by surprise.
The opposition Labour party suffered its worst defeat since 1935 in the last general election, but has since rebuilt itself under the leadership of Keir Starmer.
Thursday’s vote follows a six-week campaign in which all major parties have scoured the country in search of votes. Much of the debate has revolved around the economy, the cost of living, the state of Britain’s public services, and tax and immigration.
Largely absent from the debate, however, has been Britain’s relationship with the European Union, which it left in 2020 after a referendum four years earlier.
Britain has had three Conservative prime ministers since the last general election in 2019, which Boris Johnson won by a landslide.
But after much of the country and his party soured on Johnson, Conservative party members voted in 2022 to replace him with Liz Truss, who became the shortest-serving prime minister in British history. Conservative Members of Parliament (MPs) then voted to replace her with Sunak.
During the campaign, Nigel Farage – one of the most prominent champions of Brexit – announced his return to frontline politics to lead the nascent hard-right Reform UK party.
Sunak, Starmer, Farage and the heads of all other major parties are expected to make appearances at their own local polling stations throughout the day.
Around 46.5 million Brits are eligible to vote in the election. They are casting their ballots in 650 separate constituencies across the nations of England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, with 326 seats required for a party to form a majority government.
News outlets are barred from reporting anything that could influence voters while polls are opened. An exit poll from British broadcasters will project the seat totals are soon as polls shut at 10 p.m. local time (5 p.m. ET), and counting will take place throughout the night and into Friday morning.
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