Breaking News:Sir Keir Starmer must govern on behalf of the 80 percent of the country who did NOT vote for him as well as the 20 percent who did

The British people delivered their verdict yesterday on the state of British politics. For the Conservative Party, it was a crushing and emphatic verdict of guilty.

Guilty of failing to listen to their concerns. Guilty of breaking its promises on migration, tax and much else.

Worst of all, guilty of putting internal feuding and personal vanity before the national interest.

The anarchy that brought about the downfall of Boris Johnson and its chaotic aftermath was something the electorate could not and would not forgive.

In their collective judgment, the most successful political party in modern history had relinquished the right to govern.

The British people delivered their verdict yesterday on the state of British politics. For the Conservative Party , it was a crushing and emphatic verdict of guilty. Pictured: Newly elected Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer with his wife, Victoria

From the South coast to the North of Scotland, from the Severn to the Wash, Tory seats fell like dominoes.

In the ‘Red Wall’ constituencies of the North, Midlands and Wales, the main beneficiary of this outpouring of rage was Labour. In the shires it was the Liberal Democrats.

But across the piece, the Tories’ most sanguinary nemesis was Reform UK.

Nigel Farage and his party may have won just five seats but, by splitting the right-of-centre vote, they cost Rishi Sunak dozens, if not scores.

This was by no means the only catalyst for the Conservatives’ historic drubbing.

They lost 251 seats, saw their vote crash by nearly 20 per cent and were left with just 121 MPs, their lowest total ever.

This was repudiation on an epic scale. The voters’ main motivation seems not to have been who they wanted to win, but who they wanted to lose.

Across the country, they turned to Labour, Lib Dem, Reform, Greens, an array of independents, even Jeremy Corbyn – anyone who could beat the Tory candidate.

At his North Yorkshire constituency early yesterday, Mr Sunak described the result as ‘sobering’ for his party.

There are more accurate words. Lacerating. Humiliating. Potentially existential.

What the coming months will determine is whether this abject defeat will go down in history as their Yorktown, or merely Dunkirk. Wipe-out, or trigger for renaissance.

Their biggest comfort is that although Labour won plenty of seats, they clearly have not won hearts and minds.

Despite Sir Keir Starmer’s vapid cliches about Britain being bathed in ‘the sunlight of hope’, this was a loveless landslide.

Only one in three voters backed Labour on a pitifully low turnout of under 60 per cent.

So, supported by little more than 20 per cent of those eligible to vote, Sir Keir’s sizeable majority is built on sand.

His gloating ‘Starmtroopers’ need to understand that their margin of victory is a freak of the electoral system caused by the collapse of faith in the Government. It is not an enthusiastic mandate for radical change.