Labour leader Keir Starmer officially became prime minister of the United Kingdom on Friday.
Starmer received the blessing of King Charles III to form a government in a ceremony known as the “kissing of hands.” A photo of the occasion served as the official announcement of Starmer’s new title.
Earlier on Friday, Rishi Sunak offered his resignation as prime minister to the king.
Voters in the U.K. cast their ballots Thursday in a national election to choose the 650 lawmakers who will sit in Parliament for the next five years.
After more than a decade in power under five different prime ministers, Sunak’s Conservatives suffered a major defeat.
Starmer arrives at Buckingham Palace for meeting with the king
Labour leader Keir Starmer has arrived at Buckingham Palace to accept the request of King Charles III to form a government after his party’s landslide victory.
In a ceremony known as the “kissing of hands,” Starmer will officially become U.K. prime minister. He will then head to his official residence at 10 Downing Street.
Starmer’s arrival at the palace is part of the choreography of changing governments that harkens back to a time when the king exercised supreme power and chose his preeminent minister – the prime minister – to run his government.
The modern-day constitutional monarchy echoes that tradition, with the king officially offering the post to the party that holds a majority in the House of Commons.
Earlier in the day, outgoing Prime Minister Rishi Sunak offered his resignation to the king.
Sunak resigns
Rishi Sunak has departed from Buckingham Palace following his resignation as prime minister, after the Conservative Party suffered staggering losses in the general election.
Sunak officially left the post after tendering his resignation to King Charles III in his final audience with the monarch. Sunak was driven to the palace in a chauffeur-driven ministerial car, and left in a private vehicle.
Sunak leaves 10 Downing street after final speech as prime minister
Rishi Sunak has left the prime minister’s residence and headed to Buckingham Palace to offer his resignation to King Charles III.
“This is a difficult day, but I leave this job honored to have been prime minister of the best country in the world,” Sunak said in his final speech outside 10 Downing Street.
Sunak wished his victorious rival, Labour leader Keir Starmer, all the best: “Whatever our differences in this campaign, he is a decent, public-spirited man who I respect.”
Sunak said he had given the job his all.
Sunak conceded defeat earlier in the morning as vote counts confirmed exit polls that had projected a landslide defeat for his Conservatives to the Labour Party.
After Sunak resigns, Starmer will go to the palace to seek the king’s blessing to form a government. After performing the “kissing of hands,” the new prime minister will head to his official residence, where he is expected to speak.
China says it hopes to work with the UK ‘on the basis of mutual respect’
“Developing a stable and mutually beneficial China-UK relationship is in line with the fundamental interests of the two peoples, and is conducive to both sides responding to global challenges together and promoting world peace and development," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said Friday.
“We hope to work with the UK to move China-UK relations forward on the right track on the basis of mutual respect and win-win cooperation,” Mao said at a daily press briefing.
China-UK relations have been roiled in the last few years by blocks on Chinese investment in Britain over national security concerns, tensions in the South China Sea and China’s crackdown on democracy and free speech in the former British colony of Hong Kong in violation of its pledge to keep such institutions intact until 2047.
Left-wing disruptor George Galloway loses his seat after only a few months in Parliament
One of the casualties of the Labour Party’s landslide win was a former member.
George Galloway, the leader of the Workers Party of Britain, lost the seat he won only months ago in a special election where he mobilized support against the Labour Party’s stance on Gaza.
Galloway, who did not stay to listen to the result, lost his Rochdale seat to Labour’s Paul Waugh, a former journalist.
Rochdale, like many other northern towns, has a sizable Muslim population.
Labour leader Keir Starmer has faced criticism within Muslim circles over his strong backing for Israel in the wake of the Hamas attacks on Oct. 7. He has subsequently shifted his position to call for a ceasefire.
Galloway, a left-wing disruptor, was expelled by Labour in 2003.
Former Prime Minister Liz Truss loses her seat
Liz Truss, the former prime minister whose premiership lasted just 49 days, has lost her lawmaker’s seat in the election.
Truss lost her Norfolk South West seat to Labour by just several hundred votes. Truss quit as prime minister in 2022 after a tumultuous and historically brief term marred by economic policies that roiled financial markets.
Several other high-profile and senior Conservative lawmakers also lost their seats, including House of Commons leader Penny Mordaunt, education secretary Gillian Keegan and former business secretary Jacob Rees-Mogg.
