JUST IN: Keir Starmer Wins UK Election, Defeats Incumbent PM, Rishi Sunak
Keir Starmer on Friday will become Britain’s new prime minister, as his centre-left opposition Labour party swept to a landslide general election victory, ending 14 years of right-wing Conservative rule.
“The Labour Party has won this general election, and I have called Sir Keir Starmer to congratulate him on his victory,” a sombre-looking Rishi Sunak said after he was re-elected to his seat.
“Today, power will change hands in a peaceful and orderly manner with goodwill on all sides,” the Tory leader added, calling the results “sobering” and saying he took responsibility for the defeat.
At a triumphant party rally in central London, Starmer, 61, told cheering activists that “change begins here” and promised a “decade of national renewal”, putting “country first, party second”.
But he cautioned that change would not come overnight, even as Labour snatched a swathe of Tory seats around the country, including from nine Cabinet members, and former prime minister Liz Truss.
Truss’s disastrous 49-day tenure effectively sealed the Tories’ fate with the public two years ago, when her unfunded tax cuts spooked markets and crashed the pound.
She had been facing a campaign to oust her by grassroots activists — dubbed “the Turnip Taliban” — in her rural constituency and lost by just 630 votes.
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