London's Richest Neighborhood Just Voted Labour. That's Astounding.
It’s been an extremely dramatic election night across the U.K., where Theresa May’s Conservative Party defied expectations by losing its majority, albeit not as yet its ability to form a government. Over a night where Conservatives unexpectedly lost seat after seat, one district stood out even more than the others: the small but incredibly wealthy London district of Kensington. It’s thanks to Kensington, the richest constituency in Britain, that a result can’t fully be called yet. After two botched counts during the night, polling staff were exhausted that they need a rest before recounting this afternoon. Finally, this evening, the constituency was definitively declared for Labour.* Clearly, something incredible has happened.
The richest cluster of neighborhoods in Europe has just for the first time in its history voted in an MP from the center-left Labour Party. The last, now-rejected count found Labour just 35 votes ahead, a first for an area whose electoral boundaries have shifted but never yet returned anyone but a Conservative to Parliament.