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Sir Keir Starmer has promised to build a “government of service” after becoming the UK’s first Labour prime minister since 2010.
Speaking outside 10 Downing Street after his party’s landslide election win, he pledged to restore trust in politics and “navigate away to calmer waters”.
And appealing directly to voters who did not back his party, he vowed to put “country first” and govern “unburdened by doctrine”.
He was cheered into the famous street by a crowd of supporters, who were waving Union Jacks, and the flags of Scotland and Wales. The PM and his wife Victoria hugged old friends and colleagues who had lined up to applaud him.
Speaking from the lectern, he cautioned that despite Labour’s huge parliamentary majority of 174, his aim of “rebuilding” Britain “will take a while”.
Sir Keir, who has formally replaced Tory leader Rishi Sunak after an audience with the King at Buckingham Palace, has started to appoint his new cabinet, before it meets for the first time on Saturday.
A short time earlier, in a farewell speech outside No 10, Mr Sunak apologised to unsuccessful Tory candidates and told the public: “I have heard your anger, your disappointment.”
He pledged to remain party leader until formal arrangements for selecting his successor are in place.
It marks a dramatic turnaround in fortunes for Sir Keir’s party, which won just 203 seats under his predecessor Jeremy Corbyn in 2019, its worst result in terms of seats since 1935.
Despite increasing its share of the national vote by only around 2%, the party has more than doubled its number of seats to 412, a result just short of the historic 179 majority won by Tony Blair in 1997.
Labour’s victory came largely as a result of a dramatic 20-point drop in Tory support, with the party down 250 seats to 121, a historic low.
At 59.7%, turnout was the worst since 2001 and only narrowly ahead of the worst-ever 57.2% recorded in the 1918 election at the end of World War One.
In fact, with just two results yet to declare, Labour has won fewer votes overall – 9.7m compared to 10.3m – than at the last election.
Meanwhile, Keir Starmer has appointed Angela Rayner his deputy, hours after he assumed the PM post following a landslide Labour Party victory.
Rayner, 44, was Starmer’s first confirmed appointment to his cabinet. She will also hold the brief of minister for levelling up, housing and communities, Downing Street said in a statement.
The historic appointment has been of Rachel Reeves who has been given the responsibility of finance minister, or Chancellor of the Exchequer in the Labour government, making her the first woman in the UK to hold the role of finance minister.
Starmer has appointed David Lammy as foreign secretary and Yvette Cooper as interior minister in the Cabinet.
Lammy, 51, a trailblazing black lawmaker, replaces the Conservatives’ David Cameron as Britain’s top diplomat while Cooper, 55, takes the helm at the Home Office, a notoriously difficult ministry to run.
Keir Starmer has taken office following a decisive electoral victory on Thursday, which ended 14 years of Conservative governance. His administration will oversee the most ethnically diverse and female-inclusive parliament in the country’s history.
Black, Asian, and ethnic minority lawmakers will now constitute approximately 13% of the House of Commons. This marks an increase from the 10% representation documented in 2019 during the last parliamentary election in Britain.
According to an analysis by the think tank British Future, this will be the largest-ever share of ethnic minority members in the lower house.
UK’s centre-left Labour Party secured a sweeping victory in the general election, effectively ending 14 years of Conservative rule. Starmer’s election marks the first Labour government since 2010, achieving a significant shift in the political landscape.
The massive victory of the Labour Party managed to capture a significant number of traditionally Conservative seats across the country, leading to the defeat of several high-profile members of the Cabinet.
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