The United Kingdom will have a new Prime Minister after former chief prosecutor Keir Starmer won a landslide victory Friday over incumbent Rishi Sunak.
Sunak moved to hold the elections early in light of positive economic news, but voters instead handed his party their worst loss in election history, according to The Associated Press (AP).
Starmer’s center-left Labour Party won 412 of the 650 available seats in the U.K.’s House of Commons. Sunak’s Conservatives won just 121. Their previous low was 156 in 1906, according to The AP.
Starmer becomes the first member of the Labour Party to win the position since Tony Blair in 2005. (RELATED: Trump Congratulates Nigel Farage On Winning Seat In Parliament)
The victory ends a 14-year run of conservative leadership, which included Theresa May, Boris Johnson and the short-lived leadership of Liz Truss.
Conservative members of parliament criticized Sunak’s decision to call an early election, saying the party was unprepared and that Sunak’s platform was uninspiring, according to Reuters.
The 61-year-old Starmer brings a wealth of legal experience to the position. Once a civil rights attorney, he ended up becoming a chief prosecutor for England and Wales, according to The AP. His efforts as a prosecutor earned him knighthood.
Starmer brings promises of change, vowing to fix the country’s broken healthcare system and housing crisis, yet also assured British citizens he won’t raise taxes, The AP reported.
My government will serve you.
Politics can be a force for good.
The work of change begins today. pic.twitter.com/b5R3VWVUrI
— Keir Starmer (@Keir_Starmer) July 5, 2024
“While I don’t think anyone is particularly excited about Keir Starmer, I think he has done a good job of situating himself as the kind of competent grown up in the room who is going to be able to bring government back to where it belongs,” said Lise Butler, a professor of modern history at City University of London, according to The AP.
