Labour leader Keir Starmer officially became British prime minister on Friday, hours after his Labour Party swept to power in a landslide victory after more than a decade in opposition. Starmer was elevated to the nation's leader after a private ceremony with King Charles III in Buckingham Palace. In the merciless choreography of British politics, Starmer is taking charge in 10 Downing St. shortly after Conservative leader Rishi Sunak and his family left the official residence and the king accepted his resignation at Buckingham Palace, the AP reports.
Starmer received the blessing of the king to form a government in a ceremony known as the "kissing of hands," which did not involve any kissing. With almost all the results in, Labour had won 410 seats in the 650-seat House of Commons and the Conservatives 118. "A mandate like this comes with a great responsibility," Starmer acknowledged in a speech to supporters, saying the fight to regain people's trust after years of disillusionment "is the battle that defines our age."
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. 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," he said.
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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 Nigel Farage's Reform UK. It won four seats, including one for Farage in the seaside town of Clacton-on-Sea, securing him 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 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.
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