{"id":17184,"date":"2024-07-05T15:03:51","date_gmt":"2024-07-05T14:03:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thedailyleaks.com\/?p=17184"},"modified":"2024-07-05T15:07:45","modified_gmt":"2024-07-05T14:07:45","slug":"keir-starmer-takes-power-as-pm-in-uk-pledges-national-renewal-following-labour-landslide","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thedailyleaks.com\/keir-starmer-takes-power-as-pm-in-uk-pledges-national-renewal-following-labour-landslide\/","title":{"rendered":"Keir Starmer takes power as PM in UK, pledges national renewal following Labour landslide"},"content":{"rendered":"
June 5, 2024<\/strong><\/p>\n British Prime Minister\u00a0Keir Starmer<\/a> said he would lead a \u201cgovernment of service\u201d 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.<\/p>\n Starmer acknowledged in his first speech outside 10 Downing St. that many people are disillusioned and cynical about politics, but said his government would try to restore faith in government.<\/p>\n \u201cMy government will make you believe again,\u201d Starmer said as supporters cheered him on outside 10 Downing St.<\/p>\n \u201cThe work for change begins immediately,\u201d he said. \u201cWe will rebuild Britain. \u2026. Brick by brick we will rebuild the infrastructure of opportunity.\u201d<\/p>\n In the merciless choreography of British politics, Starmer took over the official residence about two hours after Conservative leader\u00a0Rishi Sunak<\/a>\u00a0and his family left the home and the king accepted the Conservative leader’s resignation.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is a difficult day, but I leave this job honoured to have been prime minister of the best country in the world,\u201d Sunak said in his farewell address.<\/p>\n Sunak had conceded defeat earlier in the morning, saying the voters had delivered a \u201csobering verdict.\u201d<\/p>\n In a reflective farewell speech in the same place where he had called for the snap election six weeks earlier, Sunak wished Starmer all the best but also acknowledged his missteps.<\/p>\n \u201cI have heard your anger, your disappointment, and I take responsibility for this loss,\u201d Sunak said. “To all the Conservative candidates and campaigners who worked tirelessly but without success, I\u2019m sorry that we could not deliver what your efforts deserved.\u201d<\/p>\n Labour’s triumph and challenges<\/strong><\/p>\n With almost all the results in, Labour had won 410 seats in the 650-seat House of Commons and the Conservatives 118.<\/p>\n For Starmer, it’s a massive triumph that will bring huge challenges, as he faces a\u00a0weary electorate<\/a>\u00a0impatient for change against a gloomy backdrop of\u00a0economic malaise<\/a>, mounting distrust in institutions and a fraying social fabric.<\/p>\n \u201cNothing has gone well in the last 14 years,\u201d said London voter James Erskine, who was optimistic for change in the hours before polls closed. \u201cI just see this as the potential for a seismic shift, and that\u2019s what I\u2019m hoping for.\u201d<\/p>\n And that’s what Starmer promised, saying \u201cChange begins now.”<\/p>\n Anand Menon, professor of European Politics and Foreign Affairs at King\u2019s College London, said British voters were about to see a marked change in the political atmosphere from the tumultuous \u201cpolitics as pantomime\u201d of the last few years.<\/p>\n ALSO READ:\u00a0UK election: Labour secures majority, Sunak concedes defeat, resigns<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cI think we\u2019re 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,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Britain has experienced a run of turbulent years \u2014 some of it of the Conservatives\u2019 own making and some of it not \u2014 that has left many voters pessimistic about their country\u2019s future. The U.K. divorce from the European Union followed by the COVID-19 pandemic and Russia\u2019s invasion of Ukraine battered the economy, while\u00a0lockdown-breaching parties<\/a> held by then-Prime Minister Boris Johnson and his staff caused widespread anger.<\/p>\n Rising poverty<\/a>,\u00a0crumbling infrastructure<\/a>\u00a0and overstretched\u00a0National Health Service<\/a>\u00a0have led to gripes about \u201cBroken Britain.\u201d<\/p>\n Johnson\u2019s successor, Liz Truss, rocked the economy further with a package of drastic tax cuts and lasted just 49 days in office. Truss, who lost her seat to Labour, was one of a slew of senior Tories kicked out in a stark electoral reckoning.<\/p>\n 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\u00a0Nigel Farage<\/a>\u00a0roiled the race with his party\u2019s anti-immigrant \u201ctake our country back\u201d sentiment and undercut support for the Conservatives and even grabbed some voters from Labour.<\/p>\n Conservative vote collapses as smaller parties surge<\/strong><\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n The historic defeat \u2014 the smallest number of seats in the party’s two-century history \u2014 leaves it depleted and in disarray and will spark an immediate contest to replace Sunak, who said he would step down as leader.<\/p>\n 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\u00a0Liberal Democrats<\/a>\u00a0and Farage\u2019s Reform UK. It won four seats, including one for Farage in the seaside town of Clacton-on-Sea, securing a place in Parliament on his eighth attempt.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n The\u00a0Green Party<\/a>\u00a0won four seats, up from just one before the election.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n Labour was cautious but reliable<\/strong><\/p>\n Labour did not set pulses racing with its pledges to get the sluggish economy growing, invest in infrastructure and make Britain a \u201cclean energy superpower.\u201d<\/p>\n 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 \u201cdragging his party back to the centre ground of British politics.\u201d<\/p>\n Conservative missteps<\/strong><\/p>\n The Conservative campaign, meanwhile, was plagued by gaffes. The campaign got off to an inauspicious start when rain drenched Sunak as he announced\u00a010 Downing St. Then, Sunak\u00a0went home early<\/a>\u00a0from commemorations in France marking the 80th anniversary of the D-Day invasion.<\/p>\n Several Conservatives close to Sunak are being investigated over suspicions they used inside information to\u00a0place bets<\/a>\u00a0on the date of the election before it was announced.<\/p>\n In Henley-on-Thames, about 40 miles (65 kilometres) west of London, voters like Patricia Mulcahy, who is retired, sensed the nation was looking for something different. The community, which has long voted Conservative, flipped to the Liberal Democrats this time.<\/p>\n \u201cThe younger generation are far more interested in change,\u2019\u2019 Mulcahy said ahead of the results. \u201cBut whoever gets in, they\u2019ve got a heck of a job ahead of them. It\u2019s not going to be easy.\u201d<\/p>\n AP<\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" June 5, 2024 British Prime Minister\u00a0Keir Starmer said he would lead a \u201cgovernment of service\u201d on a mission of national renewal in his first official remarks Friday after his Labour Party swept to power in […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":17188,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,2,7],"tags":[3125,153,815,40],"coauthors":[25],"class_list":{"0":"post-17184","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-latest-news","8":"category-top-news","9":"category-world","10":"tag-keir-starmer","11":"tag-labour","12":"tag-pm","13":"tag-uk"},"yoast_head":"\n