Keir Starmer will take office as Britain’s new leader on Friday, meeting world leaders and appointing his cabinet after his Labour Party’s landslide victory in the general election ended 14 years of Conservative rule.
Starmer appointed Rachel Reeves as the UK’s first female Chancellor of the Exchequer and appointed David Lammy as Foreign Secretary after his election victory, making him the first centre-left Labour Party prime minister since Gordon Brown in 2010.
A crowd of cheering Labour activists lined Downing Street as Starmer vowed to “rebuild” the UK after head of state King Charles III invited him to form a government at a meeting at Buckingham Palace.
“Our country has now resolutely opted for change, for national renewal and a return of politics to public service,” the 61-year-old said in his first speech as prime minister.
“The process of change begins immediately, but have no doubt that we will rebuild Britain.”
Within hours, Starmer held a series of phone calls with leaders, including reaffirming London’s “unwavering” support for Kiev’s war against invading Russian forces with Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelenskyy and US President Joe Biden.
He also spoke with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and the prime ministers of Canada, Italy, Ireland and Poland, as well as the heads of the UK’s regional governments in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
Starmer and von der Leyen “stressed the importance of the unique relationship between the UK and the EU” in addressing shared “challenges”, his office said.
Meanwhile, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz told Starmer in a phone call that he would be a “very good, very successful” prime minister.
Earlier, a somber Rishi Sunak conceded defeat during a steamy night for his Conservatives that left at least 12 of his senior cabinet colleagues – and his predecessor Liz Truss – dead.
Her disastrous 49-day tenure effectively sealed the Conservatives’ fate in the public eye two years ago, when her unfunded tax cuts spooked markets and sent the pound crashing.
Before Sunak left Downing Street for the last time as prime minister, he apologised to the public and announced that he would step down as leader of the Conservative Party once formal arrangements for a successor had been made.
The Tories’ worst election result to date was 156 seats in 1906. Former leader William Hague told Times Radio this was “a catastrophic result in historical terms.”
By Friday evening, Labour had won 412 constituencies in the 650-seat House of Commons, with just one result yet to be announced, giving it a majority of 174 seats.
The Tories won just 121 seats, a record low. The right vote was apparently split between Nigel Farage’s anti-immigration Reform UK party, which won five seats.
In a further boost for the centrists, the smaller opposition Liberal Democrats displaced the Scottish National Party from third place.
The results bucked the trend among Britain’s biggest Western allies, with the far right eyeing power in France and Donald Trump looking set for a return to the United States.
Former President Trump congratulated his admirer Farage on his eighth attempt to enter the British Parliament, but he conspicuously forgot to mention Starmer.
Outside London’s busy Waterloo Station, 49-year-old engagement officer Ramsey Sargent called it an “important election”.
“The last few months and years have been very bumpy. I’m very curious to see what happens next,” he said.
Tim Bale, professor of politics at Queen Mary University of London, said the Conservative defeat was “not as catastrophic as some predicted” and the Tories now had to decide how best to fight back.
Brexit campaigner Farage has made no secret of his desire to take over the party.
“There is a huge gap in the centre-right of British politics and it is my job to fill that gap,” he said after a comfortable victory in Clacton, in the east of England.
Labour’s revival is a stunning turnaround from five years ago, when former far-left leader Jeremy Corbyn led the party to its worst defeat since 1935 in an election dominated by Brexit.
Starmer took power in early 2020 and set about bringing the party back to the centre, ending the infighting and anti-Semitism that had cost the party support.
According to opinion polls, Labour has been consistently ahead of the Tories by 20 points since Truss left office, giving the impression that Labour is bound to win. It is the first time since Tony Blair in 2005.
But as the count neared its end, the difference was around 11%. It looks set to see Labour get fewer votes than in 2019, partly due to lower turnout.
Starmer faces a heavy burden on the labour market, ranging from lacklustre economic growth to overstretched and underfunded public services and households in financial straits.
He has promised a return to political integrity after a chaotic period of five Conservative prime ministers in 14 years, scandals and bribery.
