CNN Central News & Network–ITDC India Epress/ITDC News Bhopal: The elections to the UK Parliament held on Thursday saw the Labour Party, led by Keir Starmer, posting a landslide win, ending the 14-year reign of the Conservative Party. Starmer, who is set to enter Number 10 Downing Street with a commanding majority, has already declared a win, stating “the change starts now”.
Thanking Labour volunteers, volunteers, candidates and campaigners as the party crossed the 326-seat threshold, Starmer said: “We did it. You campaigned for it, you fought for it – and now it has arrived.”
“It feels good, I have to be honest. Britain has the chance to get its future back.” “Across our country, people will be waking up to the news that a weight has been lifted, a burden finally removed from the shoulders of this nation,” Starmer said.
Starmer, 61, is a social liberal, fiscal moderate and leader of the United Kingdom’s Labour Party. He’s been a member of parliament since 2015, and leader of the opposition — Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s main rival — since 2020.
The 61-year-old former human rights lawyer was raised in a left-wing, working-class family in Surrey, outside London. Keir, who rose from a lawyer to Britain’s chief prosecutor, was awarded a knighthood. Ironically, he had once called for the British monarchy to be abolished, but years later knelt before Charles, then prince of Wales, to be knighted.
He succeeded Jeremy Corbyn as Labour party leader and one of his first steps was to root out the antisemitism that had gripped the party ranks. Under him, the Labour Party also dropped Corbyn’s proposal to nationalise Britain’s energy companies. He also supported Britain’s military, hoping to banish an anti-patriotic label that clung to Labour during the Corbyn era.
