“It’s an extraordinary achievement ... I love you,” said Blair. (Reuters)

LONDON, May 6, 2005 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – Britain’s Tony Blair won a historic third straight term in office Friday, May 6, but his Labour Party suffered a drastically reduced majority in parliament in punishment for going to the war on Iraq.

“I know Iraq has been a divisive issue in this country, but I hope we now can unite again and look to the future,” a chastened Blair said after victory was confirmed overnight, Reuters said.

Official results showed that Blair was heading for a majority of between 60 and 80 seats in the 646-seat House of Commons, sharply down from 161 last time when he won a landslide victory.

With 619 results declared, Labour had won 353 seats, compared with 195 for the Conservatives and 59 for the Liberal Democrat.

“It’s an extraordinary achievement ... I love you,” said ebullient Blair at a party with Labour Party loyalists in London.

“It seems as if it is clear that the British people wanted the return of a Labour government but with a reduced majority,” he said at his northern Sedgefield constituency.

“We will have to respond to that sensibly and wisely and responsibly.”

Blair is the only Labour leader to have won three elections in a row but his margin of victory is less than half what it was in the Labour landslides of 1997 and 2001 - and he has the lowest share of the vote for a ruling party in modern times.

Before the controversial Iraq invasion, Labour controlled all 40 parliamentary seats in districts where Muslims accounted for 10 percent or more of the population, according to data from the MCB, the main representative Muslim body in the UK.

Then last year it suffered a stinging by-election defeat to the Liberal Democrats, the only one of the UK’s three major political parties to oppose the war.

“All the people you killed, all the lies you told, have come back to haunt you,” Galloway said. (Reuters)

Conservative leader Michael Howard congratulated Blair on Labour’s election victory but said it was time for him to deliver on his promises, the BBC News Online said.

“I am proud of the campaign we have fought. We have taken a stand on the things that really do matter to the people of this country. We have sent Mr Blair a message,” said Howard.

He added the Tories’ result was a “significant step towards our recovery”.

In 2001, the Conservatives won 166 seats, just one more than they did four years earlier, two defeats that provoked leadership problems for the party.

The biggest Tory casualty was shadow education secretary Tim Collins who was unseated by the Liberal Democrats in Westmorland and Lonsdale.

Lib Dem leader Charles Kennedy said British voters had ushered in a new era of three-party politics as he was returned as an MP by an overwhelming majority.

“I think it is going to be a very different House of Commons from the one we have had over the past eight years, and I think that is going to be very healthy, whatever people's political views,” he added.

Galloway

And in one of the biggest upsets to Labour, George Galloway, of the anti-war Respect party and former Labour member, narrowly beat Labour’s Oona King.

“All the people you killed, all the lies you told, have come back to haunt you,” Galloway said in his victory speech, addressing Blair.

Galloway is known for his vociferous opposition to the US-led invasion-turned-occupation of Iraq.

He accused Blair and US President George W. Bush of lying to the armed forces about the likely length of the war.