There is always a danger in exaggerating the significance of a particular election. However, the British general election does feel like a watershed.

The British people have been saved from a terrifying lurch towards socialism, which would have dragged Britain back beyond where it came from four decades ago. Voters heard the echoes of old-style union militancy and class warfare and recognised that they could do without another “winter of discontent”.

The emphatic Conservative victory also spares Britain from the widely feared scenario of a hung Parliament and the political turmoil that would have produced. It means the British Prime Minister will be able to pass the European Union withdrawal agreement through parliament and fulfil his promise to get Brexit done by the end of January.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson's emphatic victory has spared Britain from a hung parliament. Credit:EPA

Moreover, the result marks a realignment of British politics. Just as Donald Trump has tapped into widespread anxieties of America’s working-class folks, Boris Johnson has resonated with many traditional Labour electorates that have not voted Conservative in a century. The party of Churchill and Thatcher is now more blue-collar, more northern and less metropolitan.