British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said he would lead a “government of service” on a mission of national renewal in his first official remarks Friday, after his Labour Party swept to power in a landslide victory after more than a decade in opposition.
Starmer acknowledged in his first speech outside 10 Downing Street that many people are disillusioned and cynical about politics, but said his government would try to restore faith in government.
“My government will make you believe again,” Starmer said as supporters cheered him on outside the official prime minister’s residence.
“The work for change begins immediately,” he said. “We will rebuild Britain…. Brick by brick we will rebuild the infrastructure of opportunity.”
Rishi Sunak, speaking after the Conservative Party suffered defeat in a general election, said he is resigning. ‘You have sent a clear signal that the government of the United Kingdom must change and yours is the only judgment that matters,’ he said.
In the merciless choreography of British politics, he is taking charge at 10 Downing Street about two hours after Conservative Leader Rishi Sunak and his family left the residence and King Charles accepted his resignation at Buckingham Palace.
“This is a difficult day, but I leave this job honoured to have been prime minister of the best country in the world,” Sunak said in his final remarks outside the official residence.
Sunak had conceded defeat earlier in the morning, saying the voters had delivered a “sobering verdict.”
In his farewell speech in the same place where he had called for the snap election six weeks earlier, Sunak acknowledged his missteps. “I have heard your anger, your disappointment, and I take responsibility for this loss,” Sunak said.
Keir Starmer, whose Labour Party defeated the ruling Conservatives in a general election, met with King Charles on Friday.
“To all the Conservative candidates and campaigners who worked tirelessly but without success, I’m sorry that we could not deliver what your efforts deserved.”
He also wished Starmer all the best: “Whatever our differences in this campaign, he is a decent public-spirited man who I respect.”
Electorate impatient for change
With results in for all but two seats, Labour had won 412 seats in the 650-seat House of Commons and the Conservatives 121. The Conservatives’ previous worst result was 156 seats in 1906.
For Starmer, it’s a massive triumph that will bring huge challenges, as he faces a weary electorate impatient for change against a gloomy backdrop of economic malaise, mounting distrust in institutions and a fraying social fabric.
“Nothing has gone well in the last 14 years,” said London voter James Erskine, who was optimistic for change in the hours before polls closed. “I just see this as the potential for a seismic shift, and that’s what I’m hoping for.”
And that’s what Starmer promised, saying “change begins now.”
Anand Menon, professor of European politics and foreign affairs at King’s College London, said British voters were about to see a marked change in political atmosphere from the tumultuous “politics as pantomime” of the last few years.
“I think we’re going to have to get used again to relatively stable government, with ministers staying in power for quite a long time, and with government being able to think beyond the very short term to medium-term objectives,” he said.
The U.K. has a new Labour majority government. Some voters were expressing relief, saying it’s about time the country saw real change. But others expressed concern — and weariness — after the vote, which saw Keir Starmer take over as prime minister after 14 years of Conservative-led governments.
Britain has experienced a run of turbulent years — some of it of the Conservatives’ own making and some of it not — that has left many voters pessimistic about their country’s future. The U.K.’s exit from the European Union followed by the COVID-19 pandemic and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine battered the economy, while lockdown-breaching parties held by then-Prime Minister Boris Johnson and his staff caused widespread anger.
Former leader Liz Truss loses seat
Johnson’s successor, Liz Truss, rocked the economy further with a package of drastic tax cuts and lasted just 49 days in office. Truss lost her seat to Labour, one of a slew of senior Tories kicked out in a stark electoral reckoning.
Rising poverty, crumbling infrastructure and overstretched National Health Service have led to gripes about “Broken Britain.”
Starmer began appointing the government ministers who will be responsible for helping to turn those problems around. He announced that Rachel Reeves, a former Bank of England economist, will be Treasury chief, the first woman to hold the job.
Labour’s deputy leader Angela Rayner was appointed as Britain’s deputy prime minister. Rayner, who has often spoken about her tough background growing up in a deprived public housing block and leaving school early as a young mother, will also take the role of the Secretary for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities.
While the result appears to buck recent rightward electoral shifts in Europe, including in France and Italy, many of those same populist undercurrents flow in Britain. Reform UK Leader Nigel Farage has roiled the race with his party’s anti-immigrant “take our country back” sentiment and undercut support for the Conservatives and even grabbed some voters from Labour.
The result is a catastrophe for the Conservatives as voters punished them for 14 years of presiding over austerity, Brexit, a pandemic, political scandals and internecine conflict.
The historic defeat — the fewest number of seats in the party’s two-century history — leaves it depleted and in disarray and will likely spark an immediate contest to replace Sunak as leader.
In a sign of the volatile public mood and anger at the system, the incoming Parliament will be more fractured and ideologically diverse than any for years. Smaller parties picked up millions of votes, including the centrist Liberal Democrats and Farage’s Reform UK. The latter won four seats, including one for Farage in the seaside town of Clacton-on-Sea, securing a place in Parliament on his eighth attempt.
The Liberal Democrats won about 70 seats, on a slightly lower share of the vote than Reform because its votes were more efficiently distributed. In Britain’s first-past-the-post system, the candidate with the most votes in each constituency wins.
The Green Party has won four seats, up from just one before the election.
One of the biggest losers was the Scottish National Party, which held most of Scotland’s 57 seats before the election but looked set to lose all but a handful, mostly to Labour.
Labour did not set pulses racing with its pledges to get the sluggish economy growing, invest in infrastructure and make Britain a “clean energy superpower.”
Cautious campaign
But the party’s cautious, safety-first campaign delivered the desired result. The party won the support of large chunks of the business community and endorsements from traditionally conservative newspapers, including the Rupert Murdoch-owned Sun tabloid, which praised Starmer for “dragging his party back to the centre ground of British politics.”
The Conservative campaign, meanwhile, was plagued by gaffes. The campaign got off to an inauspicious start when rain drenched Sunak as he made the announcement outside 10 Downing Street. Then, Sunak went home early from commemorations in France marking the 80th anniversary of the D-Day invasion.
Several Conservatives close to Sunak are being investigated over suspicions they used inside information to place bets on the date of the election before it was announced.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was among the world leaders extending congratulations to Starmer on Friday.
“Our countries enjoy robust economic ties, and I look forward to further strengthening them with Prime Minister Starmer,” Trudeau said in a statement.
“As we work to conclude the Canada-United Kingdom Free Trade Agreement and deepen our relationship with the Indo-Pacific region through the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership, we reaffirm our mutual commitment to driving fair, dynamic economic growth and creating good middle-class jobs on both sides of the Atlantic.”