Keir Starmer, leader of the Labour Party, campaigns ahead of the general election, in Redditch, UK, on Wednesday, July 3, 2024. Bloomberg | Bloomberg | Getty ImagesLONDON — 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. 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. Rishi Sunak, UK prime minister, campaigns at a Conservative Party general election campaign event at the National Army Museum in London, UK, on Tuesday, July 2, 2024.

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Persons: Keir Starmer, Rishi Sunak, Nigel Farage's, Hannah Bunting, Labour's Tony Blair, John Major, Jeremy Hunt, Sunak, Boris Johnson, Jeremy Corbyn's Labour, Liz Truss Organizations: Labour Party, Bloomberg, Getty, Conservative, Labour Party ., of, Liberal Democrats, Greens, Scottish National Party, Plaid Cymru, Democratic Unionist Party, Nigel Farage's Reform, Conservatives, Labour, Convention, University of Exeter, European Union, Conservative Party, National Army Museum Locations: Redditch, UK, England, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland, London