LONDON (Dispatches) - Britain’s new prime minister, Keir Starmer, pledged action to fix the country, not just words, on Friday, but warned the voters who handed him a massive electoral majority and those who voted against, that improvements would take time.
Standing outside his new office and residence at Number 10 Downing Street, Starmer cut a serious figure, acknowledging the scale of the challenges that faced him after his party’s landslide victory in a parliamentary election ended 14 years of often tumultuous Conservative government.
Standing behind a lectern, he said he understood that many Britons were disillusioned with politics after years of scandal and chaos under the Conservatives, who were roundly rejected in Thursday’s election, suffering a historical loss.
“This lack of trust can only be healed by actions, not words. I know that,” he said.
“Whether you voted Labour or not, in fact, especially if you did not, I say to you directly - My government will serve you. Politics can be a force for good. We will show that.”
The center-left Labour won a massive majority in the 650-seat parliament, prompting Rishi Sunak’s resignation on Friday morning. The election result has upended British politics. Labour won some 410 seats, an increase of 210, while the Conservatives, the western world’s most successful party, lost about 250 lawmakers, including a record number of senior ministers and former Prime Minister Liz Truss.
Sunak’s Conservatives suffered the worst performance in the party’s long history as voters punished them for a cost of living crisis, failing public services and a series of scandals.
On Friday, Rishi Sunak said he would resign as prime minister and Conservative Party leader after losing heavily to Keir Starmer’s Labour Party, leaving with an apology, a tribute to Britain, and a call to protect “kindness, decency and tolerance”.
His defeat ends 14 years of Conservative government - a period marked by division, political instability and, more recently, economic pain. He hands control of the world’s sixth largest economy to centre-left Labour Party leader Keir Starmer.
“I have given this job my all, but you have sent a clear signal that the government of the United Kingdom must change, and yours is the only judgment that matters,” Sunak said in a speech outside the prime minister’s office in Downing Street.
Sunak said whatever their disagreements, he respected Starmer as a “decent public-spirited man”.
“He and his family deserve the very best of our understanding as they make the huge transition to their new lives behind this door,” he said.
Sunak spent 20 months in charge of the party, inheriting an economy suffering soaring inflation and a Conservative reputation badly damaged by a messy end to Boris Johnson’s tenure and the even more chaotic, and brief, leadership of Liz Truss.