Keir Starmer from Britain’s Labour has pledged to change UK as the next Prime Minister after his party won big in parliamentary elections on Friday, putting an end to 14 years of Conservative rule in the country.
“The Labour Party has won this general election, and I have called Sir Keir Starmer to congratulate him on his victory,” a sombre-looking Rishi Sunak said in his speech after the results came out.
Rishi called the results “sobering” as he took responsibility for the defeat.
“Change begins now,” Starmer said in a victory speech.
“We said we would end the chaos, and we will, we said we would turn the page, and we have. Today, we start the next chapter, begin the work of change, the mission of national renewal and start to rebuild our country.”
At a triumphant party rally in central London, Starmer, 61, cautioned that change would not come overnight, even as Labour snatched a great number of Tory seats around the country, including from nine Cabinet members, and former prime minister Liz Truss. Truss lost in her rural constituency by a slim margin of 630 votes.
How did the elections go?
Labour raced past the 326 seats needed to secure an overall majority in the 650-seat parliament.
An exit poll for UK broadcasters published after polls closed on Thursday put Labour on course for a return to power for the first time since 2010, with 410 seats and a 170-seat majority.
The Tories will get only 131 seats in the House of Commons—a record low—with the right-wing vote apparently spliced by Nigel Farage’s anti-immigration Reform UK party.
Esteemed journalist in an article for his platform Zeteo wrote, “Goodbye to the party that helped unleash shameful levels of racism and hate against both migrants and minorities, with not just Brexit but “Go Home” vans and the Rwanda plan; bigoted rhetoric about “swarms” of migrants and citizens of nowhere.”
What will happen to the government?
Sunak will tender his resignation to head of state King Charles III, with the monarch then asking Starmer, as the leader of the largest party in parliament, to form a government.
To-do list for next government
Starmer took over the party post-Brexit in 2020 and had aimed to bring it to the centre again.
Starmer is facing a daunting to-do list, with economic growth anaemic, public services overstretched and underfunded due to swinging cuts, and households squeezed financially.
When it comes to Gaza, he is on the same page as Rishi Sunak, emphasising support for Israel’s right to defend itself while maintaining the recognition of a two-state solution. However, Starmer has said he would review arms sales to Israel but has also not made a pledge to suspend any.
Additionally, Starmer has shown its determination to scrap the UK’s Controversial Rwanda Bill for asylum seekers that was introduced to deport illegal asylum seekers to Rwanda.
