Labor’s Keir Starmer will have to face problems such as boosting a sluggish economy, fixing a dysfunctional health system and restoring confidence in the country’s Government.
On his first full day as British premier, Keir Starmer has stated that he has already spoken about the war in ukraine with world leaders. He has also announced his plans to attend a NATO summit in Washington next week.
“I have already had a number of international calls, as you know, and as you would have expected, to establish relations with other countries to have really important discussions about Ukraine and other pressing issues. And Washington will give me the opportunity to have further conversations with some of the leaders I have already spoken to and some I plan to speak to,” the newly elected prime minister said.
Starmer also said Saturday that he is scrapping a controversial Conservative policy to deport asylum seekers to Rwanda and promised to implement the change, although he warned that it will take time.
“The Rwanda plan was dead and buried before it began“Starmer said in his first press conference. “It has never acted as a deterrent. Almost the opposite.”
The announcement was widely expected because Starmer said he would ditch the plan that has cost hundreds of millions of dollars but never got off the ground.
The press conference followed his first Cabinet meeting, in which the new Government faces the enormous challenge of sort out a lot of internal problems and win over a public tired of years of austerity, political chaos and a battered economy.
Starmer welcomed to the new ministers around the table at 10 Downing St. and said it had been the honor of his life to be asked by King Charles III to form a government in a ceremony that officially elevated him to prime minister.
“We have a lot of work to do, so now we get to work,” he said.
Starmer’s Labor Party on Friday dealt the biggest blow to the conservatives in its two centuries of history with a overwhelming victory on a platform of change.
A series of legacy problems to solve
Among the many problems they face are the push for a economy in recessionthe repair of a healthcare system that doesn’t work and the Restoration of confidence in the Government.
“The fact of Just because Labor won a huge landslide victory doesn’t mean it’s gone all the problems that the Conservative government has faced,” said Tim Bale, a politics professor at Queen Mary University of London.
In his first statements as prime minister on Friday, after the hand-kissing ceremony with Charles of England at Buckingham Palace, Starmer said he would get to work immediatelyalthough he warned that it would take some time to show results.
“Changing a country is not like flipping a switch” he said as his enthusiastic supporters cheered him outside his new official residence at 10 Downing. “This will take a while. But have no doubt that the work of change begins…immediately.”
He will have a busy schedule after six weeks of campaigning touring the four nations of the United Kingdom.
Will travel to Washington next week to attend NATO meeting and it will be host European Political Community summit on July 18one day after the opening of Parliament and the King’s speech, which establishes the agenda of the new Government.
Starmer highlighted several of Friday’s big themes, such as secure your bordersa reference to a broader global problem across Europe and the US of absorbing an influx of migrants fleeing war, poverty, as well as drought, heat waves and floods attributed to climate change.
The Conservatives struggled to stem the flow of migrants arriving across the English Channel, failing to deliver on the promise of the ex-minister Rishi Sunak “stop the boats,” which led to the controversial plan to deport asylum seekers to Rwanda.
The Secretary of State for Health, Wes Streeting, declared that Next week he will begin new negotiations with NHS doctors who are at the beginning of their career and who have carried out a series of strikes lasting several days. He salary dispute It has exacerbated the long waits for appointments that have become a hallmark of NHS problems.
