Sir Keir Starmer has entered Downing Road as Britain’s new prime minister after profitable the overall election in a historic Labour landslide, and named Rachel Reeves as the primary feminine chancellor of the exchequer.
After securing a majority of greater than 170 seats on an evening of excessive political drama, Starmer advised flag-waving supporters exterior Quantity 10 that he needed to rebuild belief between the general public and politicians.
“This wound, this lack of belief, can solely be healed by actions not phrases,” he stated, promising to prioritise financial progress. Bulletins to liberalise planning and encourage housebuilding are anticipated quickly.
Reeves stated she deliberate to run “probably the most pro-growth Treasury in our nation’s historical past”, telling officers she needed the division to ship stability and play a giant function “in a brand new period of business technique”.
Starmer arrived in Quantity 10 on Friday afternoon because the seventh Labour chief to turn out to be prime minister and instantly started assembling his cupboard.
Reeves will probably be a part of an internal “quad” of senior ministers, led by Starmer and in addition that includes Angela Rayner, deputy prime minister, and Pat McFadden, chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster.
David Lammy was confirmed as international secretary; Yvette Cooper, dwelling secretary; Jonathan Reynolds, enterprise secretary; and John Healey, defence secretary. Most of Starmer’s cupboard held the identical temporary in opposition.
Labour’s election victory is a triumph for Starmer, a former chief prosecutor who turned his celebration’s chief in 2020 after its worst postwar election defeat. His victory is comparable in scale to Tony Blair’s 1997 Labour landslide.
By Friday afternoon, Labour had secured 411 seats, with simply two constituencies nonetheless to be declared. The consequence got here largely on the expense of Rishi Sunak’s Conservatives, who collapsed to the worst defeat within the celebration’s historical past.
Nigel Farage’s Reform UK swallowed up Tory votes, leaving the Conservatives with simply 121 seats. Labour was in a position to win its majority with solely 34 per cent of the vote, the lowest-ever profitable share.
The election consequence marked a historic Labour victory — the celebration final gained in 2005 underneath Blair — however Starmer will turn out to be Britain’s new prime minister understanding that Labour’s public assist is shallow.
Earlier than the election, polls put Labour 20 factors forward. Former leftwing Labour chief Jeremy Corbyn gained 40 per cent of the vote in his 2017 election defeat.
Starmer’s avowedly pro-business agenda seems to have paid off, nonetheless, with housebuilding corporations main a UK inventory market rally on Friday. Labour has pledged to construct 1.5mn houses over the subsequent 5 years.
Labour gained scores of seats due to the rise of Reform UK, which break up the rightwing vote, punishing the Conservatives underneath the UK’s first previous the put up electoral system.
One of many victims was former prime minister Liz Truss, amongst many huge Tory names to lose their seats. Her 49-day premiership, and the financial havoc it spawned, contributed to the Conservative meltdown.
“This appears to be like extra like an election the Conservatives have misplaced than one Labour have gained,” pollster Sir John Curtice advised the BBC.
Talking from Downing Road earlier on Friday, Sunak introduced his resignation as prime minister, including that he would give up as Tory chief as soon as procedures for selecting his successor have been in place.
“To the nation, I want to say at the start, I’m sorry,” he stated. “I’ve given this job my all, however you’ve gotten despatched a transparent sign that the federal government of the UK should change.”
“I’ve heard your anger and disappointment and I take accountability for this loss,” he added.
Turnout within the election was on the right track to be about 60 per cent, near a document low, suggesting common public dissatisfaction with mainstream politics.
Starmer admitted that he confronted a direct activity of reconnecting mainstream politics to voters. “The battle for belief is the battle that defines our age,” he stated.
With nearly all ends in, Labour had secured a 34 per cent vote share, the Conservatives 24 per cent, Reform 14 per cent and the Liberal Democrats 12 per cent. Labour had gained 411 seats, the Conservatives 121, the Lib Dems 71 and Reform 5.
The centrist Lib Dems’ tally smashed the celebration’s modern-era 62-seat document in 2005, because it made huge beneficial properties within the Tory “blue wall” of well-heeled seats within the south of England.
The Scottish Nationwide celebration was behind Labour in Scotland with an anticipated 10 seats, delivering a hammer blow to the celebration’s dream of securing independence.
Among the many high-profile Conservative casualties on an evening of Tory desolation have been Grant Shapps, defence secretary; Penny Mordaunt, chief of the Commons; Gillian Keegan, training secretary; Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg, former cupboard minister; and Alex Chalk, justice secretary.
Corbyn held his Islington North seat, standing as an unbiased, whereas George Galloway, the leftwing pro-Palestinian MP for Rochdale, misplaced his seat to Labour.
However Labour misplaced 5 seats — together with one held by shadow cupboard member Jonathan Ashworth — to pro-Palestinian unbiased candidates, a sign of how Starmer’s place on the Israel-Hamas conflict has harm his celebration amongst many Muslim voters.
The Inexperienced celebration additionally gained all its 4 goal seats within the common election, quadrupling the variety of MPs it’ll ship to Westminster.
Labour’s victory bucked worldwide political tendencies, with far-right events performing strongly in current European and French elections, and Donald Trump main in polls for the US presidential race.
The Conservatives’ whole of 121 seats is decrease than the celebration’s worst-ever results of 156 in 1906. Starmer’s anticipated seat haul is near the 418 seats gained by Blair in his 1997 landslide victory.
