Keir Starmer becomes UK Prime Minister in historic victory

In July 4, 2024, the UK's electorate voted Keir Starmer of the Labour Party into power with a landslide majority that ended 14 years of Conservative government.

The new Prime Minister has taken office in Britain and promised a “national renewal” after his centre-left Labour Party won a landslide election victory that decisively swept the Conservatives out of power but pointed to a dissatisfied and fragmented nation.

The Conservatives, who have been in power for 14 years, were left with 121 seats after the worst result in their history.

The 2024 election was not just a historic win for Labour as several other political parties got their highest shares of votes and seats in the election and this increase suggests a notable shift in voter support away from the traditional two-party dominance towards alternative parties, indicating a possible fragmentation of the political landscape in the future.

Significant in-roads

The Liberal Democrats made significant in-roads, winning 72 seats. Most of these were in constituencies where the Conservatives were incumbents, particularly when an incumbent. Labour retained over 97 per cent of such seats. The Conservatives managed to retain only a third of the constituencies where they were incumbents.

While Labour’s winning 412 seats, out of 650 seats in the House of Commons representing a majority of 174 in Parliament an increase of 211 seats since the previous general election in 2019 ensured the party a robust majority as they formed a government for the first time in 14 years, the breakdown of votes, and the lowest turnout in years, indicated the challenges ahead for Starmer. 

New cabinet

Supporters argue that the new prime minister and his cabinet now have a strong mandate to govern, while critics point to Labour only getting 34 per cent of the overall vote. This may have been a tactical move to ensure victory, but some see it as a ‘double-edged sword’.

Analysts have estimated that Labour had garnered only 35 per cent of the votes nationwide, which John Curtice, a prominent polling expert in the UK said would be “the lowest share of the vote won by any single-party majority government.”

The 2024 election is a landmark for representation, with record diversity in parliament, closer than ever to that of the electorate and the irony is that, it coincides with the end of Rishi Sunak’s premiership as the UK’s first British Asian Prime Minister and underlines how ethnic diversity has become a new norm across the main political parties.

The incoming parliament will include a record of 242 female lawmakers, 22 more than the last election in 2019 and the PM will oversee a more ethnically diverse and female parliament than ever. 

House of Commons

Black, Asian and ethnic minority lawmakers who will represent around 13 per cent, open a new tab of the House of Commons up from 10 per cent in 2019, when Britain last held a parliamentary election and it will be the largest-ever share of ethnic minority members of the lower house, according to analysts.
 

Around 18 per cent of people in England and Wales come from a Black, Asian, mixed or ethnic minority background, according to official data.

Keir Starmer enters power with one of the longest lists of problems ever to face an incoming prime minister and few resources to deal with them - a situation that could curtail any "honeymoon period" offered by the British people.

It is a situation not lost on the 61-year-old Labour leader and former lawyer, who spent much of the election campaign listening to voters' concerns about health care, education and the cost of living but promising only to try to make the lives of British voters a little better - over time.

"I'm not going to stand here and say there's some magic wand that I can wave the day after the election and find money that isn't there," he said in a head-to-head debate with his predecessor Rishi Sunak before the election. "Huge damage has been done to our economy. It is going to take time."

Changed Labour party

Prime Minister Starmer has appointed Labour MPs and peers to 22 key cabinet positions, including a record 11 women with Rachel Reeves becoming the UK's first female Chancellor of the Exchequer, or Finance Minister Angela Rayner being made Deputy Prime Minister, Yvette Cooper becomes home secretary and David Lammy is the new Foreign Secretary.

Starmer says he leads a changed Labour Party, having instilled a sense of discipline after it all but tore itself apart during the Brexit years under his predecessor, veteran left-winger Jeremy Corbyn.

That message dominated the six-week campaign, with no new policy offerings beyond those which had been, according to Labour, fully funded and cost. He has tried not to raise hopes for swift change too high, putting wealth creation, and political and economic stability at the heart of his pitch to voters.

The strategy is very much a product of Starmer, who turned to politics in his 50s in a career that has been marked by a cautious and methodical approach, relying on competence and pragmatism rather than being driven by an overriding ideology.

Prime Minister Starmer

Named after the founder of the Labour Party, Keir Hardie, Starmer was brought up in a left-wing household. As a barrister, he often defended underdogs and worked to get people off death row around the world.

He became a Labour lawmaker in 2015, a year after he received a knighthood for his services to law and criminal justice and was appointed Labour leader in 2020 following the party's worst election showing since 1935. He implemented a plan to turn the party around and guide its priorities, with one person who worked with Starmer saying: "He thinks about the best way to take people with him."

This approach has led to the charge that he is dull. He has drawn negative comparisons with Tony Blair, who led the party to victory with a landslide majority in 1997.

Some businesses say they look forward to a period of calm after 14 years of turbulent Conservative government, marked by Britain's vote to leave the European Union in 2016 and the cost of living crisis that followed the COVID-19 pandemic and Russia's invasion of Ukraine.