* Keir Starmer
By The Pathfinder
Friday July 5, 2024
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The Labour Party has secured a landslide victory in the UK election to end 14 years of Conservative rule. “We did it!” Keir Starmer, the Labour leader and incoming prime minister, said in his victory speech. “Change begins now.”
Outgoing Conservative Prime Minister Rishi Sunak concedes defeat, saying it has been a “difficult night”. Follow live results here.
There was a surge in support for the Liberal Democrats, while the populist right wing Reform UK party picked up support from disgruntled Conservative voters to win a clutch of parliamentary seats.
The Scottish National Party had what party leader John Swinney called a “very poor result” losing dozens of seats.
Key issues for voters in the UK included the cost of living, the health service and housing.
Ukraine PM Zelenskyy congratulates Starmer, thanks Sunak
“Ukraine and the United Kingdom have been and will continue to be reliable allies through thick and thin,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in his congratulatory post to the UK’s incoming leader, Keir Starmer, on X.
The Ukrainian leader also hailed the country’s ties with the UK under outgoing leader Rishi Sunak, thanking him for Britain’s military support in particular.
“I am grateful to my good friend @RishiSunak for the UK government’s steadfast support under his leadership,” said Zelenskyy.
“Challenger tanks, Storm Shadow missiles, F-16 training for our pilots, and the first bilateral security cooperation agreement are just a few of our shared achievements that Ukraine will never forget. Thank you, Rishi.”
I am grateful to my good friend @RishiSunak for the UK government’s steadfast support under his leadership. Challenger tanks, Storm Shadow missiles, F-16 training for our pilots, and the first bilateral security cooperation agreement are just a few of our shared achievements that…
— Volodymyr Zelenskyy / Володимир Зеленський (@ZelenskyyUa) July 5, 2024
Canada’s Trudeau congratulates Starmer on his election victory
“Lots of work ahead to build a more progressive, fair future for people on both sides of the Atlantic. Let’s get to it, my friend,” said Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in a post on X congratulating the UK’s new leader.
Congratulations, @Keir_Starmer, on a historic U.K. election victory.
Lots of work ahead to build a more progressive, fair future for people on both sides of the Atlantic. Let’s get to it, my friend. pic.twitter.com/QWlNF9NYcJ
— Justin Trudeau (@JustinTrudeau) July 5, 2024
Cost of living topping people’s concerns
Anandadeep Mandal, associate professor of finance at the University of Birmingham, says the most important area of focus for the incoming government is the cost of living.
“The average inflation has been 8.7 percent and the salary hike has been 6.9 percent,” he told Al Jazeera. “So the cost of living has gone up.”
“Energy bills in the average household are about 2,500 [pounds] per year – that’s incredibly high,” he added.
Mandal identified housing, the state of the NHS and education as the other main issues topping people’s concerns, noting that people will be expecting to see Labour’s campaign pledges being brought into practice.
King Charles to formally usher in new PM in choreographed ceremony
Labour leader Keir Starmer will become prime minister only after a studiously choreographed ceremony later today, during which King Charles III will formally ask him to form a new government.
The ceremony indicates that in the UK, the right to govern is still derived from royal authority – even centuries after real political power was transferred to elected members of parliament.
Here’s how the ceremony will play out.
Outgoing leader Rishi Sunak will go to Buckingham Palace to offer his resignation to the king. Starmer will arrive soon after.
Starmer will then undergo a ceremony in the palace known as the “Kissing of Hands” – with no actually kissing, however. After the king asks Starmer to form a government, the new leader will bow and shake Charles’s hand.
As soon as power is transferred, a photo will be taken to mark the occasion.
News helicopters are expected to follow Starmer and Sunak’s cars to the palace and back. While there’s no public delivery of what is said between the new prime minister and the king, commentators will usually speculate about what’s being said behind closed doors.
The new prime minister will then leave the palace in a prime ministerial car and return to Downing Street to make a statement, before entering the famous black door of Number 10 and beginning his term as the UK’s leader.
King Charles III delivers the King’s Speech from The sovereign’s throne in the House of Lords chamber at the Houses of Parliament in London on November 7, 2023 [File: Kirsty Wigglesworth/Pool/AFP]
Milena Veselinovic
Reporting from Barnet, UK
It’s been a really shock result for the SNP, a party that has been the dominant force in Scottish politics for at least a decade.
During the last general election in 2019, it won 48 of the 59 Scottish seats. This time around, it is predicted to get just about 10 seats.
The party has been mired in a lot of controversy over the last couple of years. They have had open disagreements over things like gender identity and they’ve also have had a police investigation into party finances that has really damaged their credibility.
They expected that this would be bad but perhaps they didn’t know it would be as bad as this.
The SNP’s decline has been offset by Labour’s ascent in Scotland. During the last general election, it won only one seat. Now, it is on track to win 37 seats and become the largest party in Scotland.
As for the Conservatives in Scotland, their picture there reflects the nationwide decline that they’ve experienced in this general election.
Their leader Douglas Ross has lost his seat and branded it an “historically bad” night for the Conservatives.
Reform showing echoes rise of similar parties in Europe
Commenting on the strong election performance of Reform, Patrick Diamond, a professor in public policy at Queen Mary University of London, says the anti-immigration, right-wing populist party succeeded in capturing the votes of people who are disillusioned with the way the UK’s political system and economy work.
“They feel excluded, sometimes shut out from decisions, and a vote for Reform is perceived to be a vote against the establishment,” he told Al Jazeera.
Diamond said the rise of Farage’s party was similar to that of other reactionary parties in Europe, adding that this emphasises the task ahead for Labour “in winning the trust of those people now it’s in government”.
“It has to show them that a Labour government will make a difference and they can trust politics and government to make their lives better.”
Labour leader Keir Starmer is expected to become the UK’s next prime minister after his party swept Thursday’s general election, taking more than 400 of the 650 seats up for grabs.
Starmer, addressing supporters in London, attributed Labour’s landslide victory to a “changed party” and said the mandate comes with “great responsibility”. He promised to govern for every single person in the UK.
Starmer is expected to meet King Charles in the coming hours, and be asked to form a new government. He is also expected to announce his cabinet later in the day.
Conservative Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, who has conceded defeat, managed to hold onto his seat, but several prominent members of his cabinet lost the election. These include Defence Minister Grant Shapps and Education Minister Gillian Keegan. Former Conservative Prime Minister Liz Truss also lost her seat by just over 600 votes.
Nigel Farage, the leader of the right-wing populist Reform UK party, won his own seat, becoming an MP at his eighth attempt. His party won four seats, but is expected to become the third most popular by vote share.
‘Extraordinary’ result for Starmer’s Labour
Jonah Hull
Reporting from Downing Street, London, UK
It has been an extraordinary night for the Labour Party and Kier Starmer, winning as handsomely as they have done – a three-figure majority.
We await the final figures, of course, but Starmer is projected to become the first opposition leader to lead his party in to government in 27 years, after Tony Blair in 1997.
He does so having restored Labour’s fortunes in just five years from 2019, moving it much closer to the centre with a vision of progressive liberalism.
The majority will allow him an even hand to do pretty much what he wants – and he has a long to-do list. It will be limited only by the money that is available. Number one on his list is to restore economic growth.
Prominent Labour politician loses seat to pro-Palestine candidate
Jonathan Ashworth, Labour’s shadow cabinet office minister, has lost his seat in central England to an independent pro-Palestine candidate.
Ashworth lost the Leicester South seat to Shockat Adam by just under 1,000 votes.
Adam described his victory as an “indication to those that have been in power for so long that you cannot forget the people you serve” and added, “this is for the people of Gaza”.
Britain’s Shadow Paymaster General, Jonathan Ashworth, delivers his keynote speech on the final day of the Labour Party’s annual conference in Liverpool, Britain, on October 11, 2023 [Phil Noble/Reuters]
A big success for Farage
Milena Veselinovic
Reporting from Barnet, UK
There have been several seats in the northeast of England where Reform was the second largest party in that constituency, after Labour, and in some cases, way ahead of the Conservatives.
These votes don’t always translate into parliamentary gains and seats because of Britain’s first-past-the-post system.
But it has been a huge success for Farage who has now, in his eighth attempt, been selected for a seat in parliament.
It was only four weeks ago that he announced that he will be standing in this race.
He has really played on the issue of immigration, doubling down on it in this general election, and there have been seats in Tory and Labour heartlands where the Reform party vote has been exceptionally high.
And Farage has actually vowed to give Labour trouble in the months and years ahead as he takes his seat in parliament.
Nigel Farage [File: Henry Nichols/AFP]
New Zealand’s prime minister congratulates Starmer
Christopher Luxon said he looked forward to working with Starmer and thanked Sunak for his friendship to New Zealand.
Congratulations @Keir_Starmer on your election victory. New Zealand and the UK are great friends and can do so much more together. I look forward to working on every opportunity together as prime ministers.
Thank you @RishiSunak for your service to your nation and friendship to…
— Christopher Luxon (@chrisluxonmp) July 5, 2024
When will the new PM be in place?
After conceding defeat, Sunak is expected in the coming hours to formally tender his resignation to King Charles.
Starmer, the leader of the winning party, will then meet the monarch, who will request he form a government.
The incoming prime minister usually then heads to Downing Street to make a speech to the British public.
The new leader will begin appointing government ministers, starting with senior positions and moving on to more junior roles over the coming days.
Anger, apathy suppressed voter turnout
Rory Challands
Reporting from London, UK
It’s very clear that the country is not in love with Keir Starmer, that the country is not in love with the Labour Party in the same way that it was for Tony Blair in 1997. This is an election that has been lost by the Conservatives as much as it has been won by the Labour Party.
When the final number of votes are counted, I think we’re going to see that the turnout is lower for this election that it has been in elections recently, signifying that there is widespread anger, apathy towards the main parties, the Conservative Party and to a lesser extent, the Labour Party.
That is reflected also in the surge in support for smaller parties – the Liberal Democrats are doing particularly well at the moment and Reform UK – the party headed by Nigel Farage – it’s certainly doing well. Maybe not as well as the Liberal Democrats in terms of seats, but it might well end up being the third most popular party by vote share.
Now the United Kingdom’s electoral system often doesn’t reward those who do well with vote share with actual seats in parliament and that might well be the case for Reform.
But in terms of their influence on discussions and the agendas that get talked about in the media and in parliament, Nigel Farage and his populist right-wing, anti-immigrant, anti-European party is going to be setting a lot of the talking points, a lot of the agenda.
A woman leaves a polling station during the general election in London, Britain, on July 4, 2024 [Maja Smiejkowska/ Reuters]
‘We are going to be beat in Scotland, and we are going to be beat well’
The Scottish National Party (SNP) has had its worse showing in more than a decade, projections showed.
It is predicted to get only between 6-11 of 57 contested seats, the party’s lowest since the six it won at the 2010 British parliamentary election.
“We are experiencing something that we have not experienced in quite some time. We are going to be beat in Scotland, and we are going to be beat well,” the SNP’s Westminster leader Stephen Flynn said after retaining his own seat.
Labour, meanwhile, is projected to win a big majority in the British parliament overall, and has thus far won 15 out of 20 seats in Scotland, its most since the 41 won under the leadership of Gordon Brown, a Scot, in 2010.
The results are seen as derailing a Scottish independence push, as the SNP had said that winning a majority of Scottish seats would give it an impetus to pursue independence talks.
The SNP had dominated the British parliament’s Scottish seats since 2015. But it has been embroiled in turmoil, with two leaders who quit in a little over a year and a police investigation into the party’s finances, and splits.
Starmer, meanwhile, has ruled out another independence referendum. Recent polling has indicated that Scots favour remaining part of the UK by a narrow margin.
Liz Truss loses her seat
The former prime minister has lost her seat of South West Norfolk by just over 600 votes, to Labour.
Truss became the country’s shortest-serving leader, at just 44 days, when she caused a bond market meltdown and a collapse in sterling in 2022.
Truss secured 11,217 votes behind 11,847 votes for Labour candidate Terry Jermy.
Former British Prime Minister Liz Truss at a news conference in London, Britain, on October 14, 2022 [File: Daniel Leal/Pool via Reuters]
Tories facing ‘fundamental debate’ after election calamity
Diamond has also told Al Jazeera that the Conservatives are about to enter a long period of self-reflection following their dismal election showing.
“It will be very difficult and no doubt in the months ahead there will be recriminations and arguments about why they’ve lost just so badly,” he said.
“There will be a big debate in the party about fundamentally, did the Tories make a mistake by moving away from the kind of centrist, moderate politics that we saw under leaders like David Cameron, or did they make a mistake by trying to become another version of Reform by having very harsh positions on issues like immigration as well as Europe?”
Diamond concluded: “I think we’ll see in the months ahead a really fundamental debate about what British conservatism is for and how it needs to change in order to be relevant to the Britain of today – not 20 or 30 years ago.”
Country Starmer inherits ‘in a very different position’ than 1997’s UK under Blair.
There have been a lot of comparisons made with Labour’s win today and the 1997 victory under Tony Blair.
But Patrick Diamond, a former policy adviser for the Labour government led by Blair and Gordon Brown, has told Al Jazeera that the situation today is markedly different.
“In 1997, there was in the country a greater sense of hope and optimism based on the fact that Britain was in a very different position – not least because economically it was doing very well at that time,” said Diamond, who is a professor in public policy at Queen Mary University of London.
“The country that Keir Starmer inherits today is in a very different position,” he added. “The economy has been weak for some time, it’s been through a number of shocks dealing with the aftermath of COVID, the Ukraine war and so on.”
Sunak concedes defeat in UK election
This is the moment when the prime minister and leader of the Conservative Party concedes defeat to the main opposition Labour Party.
Rory Challands
Reporting from London, UK
The Labour Party has now broken through that magic number of 326 seats needed to form a majority government. We can now say that Labour is the victor in the 2024 election, and Keir Starmer is going to be the next prime minister of the United Kingdom.
Now, the list of challenges that the UK is currently facing is very long indeed.
There is a widespread opinion here that over the last few years, things have been getting worse and worse and worse – that public services in particular are crumbling; that the National Health Service is on its knees, you have to wait for doctors appointments, you have to wait for ambulances to arrive; that there is sewage in the rivers; that jails are overflowing; the courts are bogged down; that libraries and swimming pools are closing; that the chaos of the last few years of Conservative rule have basically distracted the government as it has been from doing what governments are supposed to do.
And that is what Keir Starmer says that his Labour Party is going to change.
Whether it can do that, whether it will do that of course, we will have to wait and see over the next weeks.
Starmer is going to have to hit the ground running, he’s going to be naming his cabinet probably by the end of today. Then he has to do things like go to the NATO Summit next week, so there is a lot that he has to do very fast and he knows it.
Liberal Democrats dance to ‘Sweet Caroline’ as party celebrates seat surge
The Liberal Democrats are gathering in London after turning in their best electoral performance since 1923.
Party leader Ed Davey was dancing to Sweet Caroline as he entered the room, according to a video shared by Sky’s Jack Taylor on social media.
Sir Ed Davey celebrates to Sweet Caroline as he enters the @LibDems watch party in Central London. pic.twitter.com/JKIyyIE3Uj
— Jack Taylor (@Jack_P_Taylor) July 5, 2024
What is Labour’s policy on Gaza?
Sarkar, contributing editor at Novara Media, has been speaking to Al Jazeera on Starmer’s policy on Israel’s war on the Palestinian enclave.
“Keir Starmer made it quite clear his position on Israel’s genocide or war in Gaza is completely indistinguishable from that of Biden in the White House. When Biden moves his position, Keir Starmer magically moves it as well,” she told Al Jazeera.
“At the beginning of this particular war, back in October, Keir Starmer said that Israel does have that right to cut off food, fuel, electricity, water and medicine to the people of Gaza. He’s since said that he was taken out of context, that that’s not what he meant. But actually, his fellow shadow cabinet ministers went out and defended that line. It was only when this was causing electoral problems, he was losing the Muslim vote, that he decided to backpedal,” Sarkar said.
“Labour has said they will recognise a Palestinian state. Again, they’ve backed off from that. So I don’t think that we’re going to be seeing anything significantly different on foreign policy. This is something that has profoundly angered and moved voters in this country, particularly in areas where you’ve got a lot of young people, a lot of left-wing people, and also a lot of Muslim voters as well. They’ve felt completely disgusted that the consensus position of the media class, which has been to enable this genocide, is so far away from the heartfelt moral position of most people in this country.”
Australian prime minister congratulates Starmer
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has congratulated Keir Starmer on Labour’s victory.
Albanese, who leads his country’s Labor party, says he’s looking forward to working with the new UK prime minister.
Congratulations to my friend and new UK Prime Minister @Keir_Starmer on his resounding election victory – I look forward to working constructively with the incoming @UKLabour Government
— Anthony Albanese (@AlboMP) July 5, 2024
SOURCE: AL JAZEERA AND NEWS AGENCIES
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