MP Andy Burnham will be crowned as UK Prime Minister on Monday after he was announced to take over from Starmer as leader of the Labour Party on Friday afternoon
Sir Keir Starmer has been booted from No. 10 Downing Street as removals vans were seen turning up on Friday morning and into the afternoon.
Future PM Andy Burnham addressed the nation today as he was crowned leader of the Labour Party. The Makerfield MP appeared at the Party’s special conference, where he was officially named as the party’s new leader. He will be crowned Prime Minister on Monday, but today he gave a speech that’s set to detail what Britain is to expect from him as leader.
Burnham said he would bring a return of Labour that people once knew. He said people had “waited too long to feel hope within politics again”. “I am ready,” he said as he paid tribute to Starmer who said helped laid these Labour foundations.
“Today we thank Keir for his service to his country and his party,” Burnham announced. “This is a proud moment you have given me and my family today, and an emotional one, but it is one for which I am ready.
“I am ready, ready to lead and to build on the foundation laid by one person more than any other. Under Keir Starmer’s leadership, we went from our worst defeat to one of the best victories in our history.
“Keir put Labour back in a position to change people’s lives, and that is what we have been doing these last two years. Today we thank Keir for his service to our party and to our country.”
He also set out his vision for a “renewed” Labour government that will focus on “driving growth in every postcode” and “returning power to communities”. He said it will be a government that will have the “courage to fix the big things that politics has neglected” and the “conviction to argue for our plans”.
Burnham continued: “Change starts with honesty. We must recognise that this generation of politicians, myself included, have failed to challenge a political culture and an economic model that simply doesn’t work well enough for ordinary people.
“Four decades of neoliberalism that began in the 1980s have not been kind to the places that built our party, nor to the communities across the UK in rural and coastal areas. So we pledge today to them to be better.”
The former Greater Manchester mayor returned to Westminster as Makerfield MP last month and gained overwhelming support from Labour MPs to take over from Sir Keir as party leader after he announced his resignation.
Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood, in her role as chairwoman of Labour’s ruling National Executive Committee, confirmed the results of the leadership contest in which Mr Burnham was backed by 379 of the party’s 403 MPs and all 11 unions affiliated with the party.
Mr Burnham will enter No 10 Downing Street on Monday to become the UK’s seventh prime minister in a decade, with all eyes on his policy agenda and who he will appoint to his Cabinet.
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