LONDON: Newly elected UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer began his first full day in office on Saturday by declaring the ousted Conservatives' plan to deport migrants to Rwanda “dead and buried” and pledging growth as his government's “number one mission.”
The Labour leader won a landslide election victory on Friday, ending 14 years of Conservative rule.
He said he was “uneasy about change” and that his party had been given a “mandate to do politics differently”.
Starmer began the day with a first meeting of his cabinet, which included Britain's first female finance minister, Rachel Reeves, and the new foreign secretary, David Lammy.
“We have a huge amount of work to do, so now we get to work,” he told his senior team to applause and smiles around the cabinet table.
At a later news conference, he said he would not go ahead with former Conservative prime minister Rishi Sunak's controversial plan to tackle rising small boat arrivals on England's south coast by deporting migrants to Rwanda.
“The Rwanda plan was dead and buried before it began… I am not prepared to continue with tricks that do not act as a deterrent,” he told reporters in his office at 10 Downing Street.
'Driving growth'
Starmer spent his first hours in Downing Street on Friday appointing his ministerial team, hours after securing the return of his centre-left party to power with a huge majority of 174 seats in the UK parliament.
Notable lower-ranking appointments include Patrick Vallance, the government's chief scientific adviser during the Covid-19 pandemic, who was appointed science minister.
James Timpson, whose shoe repair business employs ex-offenders, was also appointed as Prisons Minister.
Starmer said both new ministers were people “associated with change” and illustrated their determination to deliver concrete improvements to people's lives.
Work to “boost growth” had already begun, he said, adding that he had told his ministers “exactly what I expect from them in terms of standards, compliance and the trust the country has placed in them.”
NATO's support is “unwavering”
Crowds of flag-waving Labour activists applauded Starmer outside Downing Street on Friday, hours after his victory.
But his government faces enormous challenges, including a stagnant economy, poor public services and households suffering from a years-long cost-of-living crisis.
World leaders lined up to congratulate Britain's new prime minister.
Starmer spoke by phone with US President Joe Biden and “discussed their shared commitment to the special relationship between the UK and the US and their aligned ambitions for further economic growth,” according to London.
He also spoke with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Former (and potentially future) US president Donald Trump, however, ignored Starmer and instead praised the five-seat electoral gain by his ally Nigel Farage's far-right Reform UK party.
Starmer will make his debut on the international stage as a leader when he flies to Washington next week for a NATO summit.
“I must make it absolutely clear that the first duty of my Government is security and defence, and make clear our unwavering support for NATO,” he said.
He added that he had reiterated to Zelensky the support of the United Kingdom and its allies for Ukraine.
Fears amid internal struggles
In this election, Labour came close to its record of 418 seats under former leader Tony Blair in 1997, winning 412.
The Conservatives suffered their worst defeat yet, winning just 121 constituencies, prompting Sunak to apologise to the nation and confirm he will step down as Tory leader once steps have been taken to select a successor.
A record 12 former senior government ministers lost their seats, along with former Prime Minister Liz Truss, whose short-lived and financially calamitous tenure in 2022 wounded the party beyond repair ahead of the election.
Now lies another period of infighting between a moderate wing eager for a centrist leader and those who might even be willing to court Farage as a new figurehead.
The election also saw the centrist Liberal Democrats make their biggest gains in almost a century, winning more than 70 seats.
But the contest was a discouraging one for the pro-independence Scottish National Party, which was virtually wiped out in Scotland, dropping from 48 seats to just nine.
The Green Party had its best general election, quadrupling its number of deputies to four.
Meanwhile, an unprecedented six independent MPs were elected, four of them defeating Labour candidates in constituencies with large Muslim populations and campaigns focused on the Israel-Hamas conflict.
