LONDON: Keir Starmer became UK’s new prime minister on Friday and vowed to rebuild Britain, hours after his Labour Party secured a landslide victory in a general election in which the weary voters inflicted a “sobering verdict” on Rishi Sunak-led Conservatives, who suffered their worst electoral drubbing.
Starmer, 61, assumed charge as the 58th prime minister after his customary audience with King Charles III at Buckingham Palace, following Sunak’s meeting with the British monarch.
The Labour Party secured 412 seats in the 650-member House of Commons, up 211 from the last election in 2019. Sunak’s Conservatives won just 121 seats, down 250 seats from the previous election. While the Labour had a vote share of 33.7 per cent the Conservatives had 23.7 per cent.