LONDON (AP) — There is no respite for Britain’s new Prime Minister Keir Starmer. After a gruelling six-week election campaign, the center-left politician must get straight to work assembling his government, tackling a mountain of domestic problems and shaping Britain’s relations with the rest of the world.
It’s a daunting list for a new leader who has never served in government, let alone led one. But Starmer insisted he is up to the challenge of leading the UK in a world that is “a more unstable place” than it has been for years.
Appoint a government
Like someone moving into a new house and taking all of their IKEA furniture with them, Starmer’s first task was to assemble a wardrobe.
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Starmer began assembling his government shortly after walking through the doors of 10 Downing St. on Friday afternoon following his landslide election victory. He has a glut of lawmakers to choose from – his Labour Party won more than 400 seats in Thursday’s election, nearly two-thirds of the 650 in the Commons.
Key players in the new government include Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves, a former economist at the Bank of England and the first woman to hold the position. She will liaise with international financial institutions.
The new foreign secretary, Britain’s top diplomat, is David Lammy, a Harvard Law School graduate who pledged to “reconnect Britain for our security and prosperity at home.”
Make friends on the world stage
Starmer has said his message to the world from the UK is: “We’re back.” He wants Britain to play a greater role on the global stage after years of soured relations with Europe over Brexit and the inward-looking British political soap opera that followed.
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In the hours after taking office, the new prime minister held a series of talks with world leaders, including US President Joe Biden, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, European Union leader Ursula von der Leyen and Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskyy. He also sent Lammy on a weekend trip to Germany, Poland and Sweden.
Starmer takes office at a time of multiple crises, including war in Ukraine and the Middle East, a rising far-right and a show of force in China, which will test the coolness he developed in his previous role as Britain’s chief prosecutor.
Malcolm Chalmers, deputy director general of the Royal United Services Institute, a military think tank, said that with France facing a far-right surge in parliamentary elections and the US locked in a polarising, high-stakes presidential election, Britain “has the most stable government of all the major Western democracies.”
“It therefore has the opportunity and the responsibility to help stabilize the ship of Western unity at a time of exceptional political fluidity,” he said.
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Starmer will make a high-profile international debut by flying to Washington on Tuesday for NATO’s 75th anniversary summit, a meeting clouded by questions about Biden’s fitness and the uncertain outcome of November’s US presidential election.
Starmer has said there will be no change in Britain’s staunch support for Ukraine and has pledged to increase British military spending to 2.5% of GDP, although he has not yet given a date for this.
“The decision for Starmer is how far he tries to persuade the US – and other reluctant NATO members – to remain a defender of Ukraine, not just on the grounds of sovereignty but also of European security,” said Bronwen Maddox, director of international affairs think tank Chatham House.
Starmer also faces divisions within his party over Israel’s war on Hamas. Several Labour lawmakers were defeated in the election by challenges from pro-Palestinian independents angry at the party’s initial refusal to unequivocally call for a ceasefire in the Gaza conflict.
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Make it up to the neighbors
On July 18, Starmer will host leaders from across Europe at Britain’s Blenheim Palace for a meeting of the 47-nation European Political Community. It is a chance to mend ties with the U.K.’s European neighbors, which have soured and deteriorated since the U.K. left the European Union in 2020.
Starmer says he wants to reduce some of the post-Brexit barriers to people and goods that have hampered Britain’s ties with the bloc. However, he insists he will not reverse Brexit or rejoin the EU’s single market and customs union.
Critics say this shows a lack of principle, but supporters say it respects Britain’s desire not to reopen the divided Brexit debate.
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Tackle a long to-do list
Starmer also faces a daunting range of domestic challenges, underpinned by a widespread sense that many aspects of British public life have collapsed during the 14 years of Conservative rule.
Stagnant growth and low productivity are holding back the economy, while millions struggle to make ends meet. The country’s ageing infrastructure is creaking and the state-funded National Health Service is on the brink of breaking down, with long waiting lists for treatment, a situation exacerbated by a prolonged series of doctors’ strikes. Ending that dispute will be a priority, but Starmer has vowed to keep a tight rein on spending and will not agree to the big pay rises doctors are seeking.
Starmer has pledged to take control of migration and stop people making dangerous journeys across the English Channel in small boats, but has scrapped the Conservative government’s controversial plan to send asylum seekers on one-way tickets to Rwanda – declaring on Saturday that the Rwanda deal was “dead and buried”. The UK has paid Rwanda hundreds of millions of pounds (dollars) as part of the deal without a single flight having departed.
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He is also expected to emphasise Britain’s commitment to tackling climate change, after a series of backward steps under the Conservatives.
The new government’s legislative plans for the coming year are set out in a speech by King Charles III at the ceremonial State Opening of Parliament on 17 July.
“A lot of people feel there’s a potential transformation happening,” said Lise Butler, a senior lecturer in modern history at City, University of London. “I think there will be high expectations for Starmer that will be hard to meet.”
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Kwiyeon Ha, an Associated Press video journalist, contributed to this story.
