Andy Burnham becomes the UK’s seventh prime minister in a decade after Starmer resigns

The mo­ment for Andy Burn­ham has fi­nal­ly come.

Af­ter weeks as leader-in-wait­ing, Burn­ham of­fi­cial­ly be­came prime min­is­ter on Mon­day dur­ing a meet­ing with King Charles III at Buck­ing­ham Palace.

He suc­ceed­ed Keir Starmer, on a day when Britain’s po­lit­i­cal tur­bu­lence gave way, at least tem­porar­i­ly, to smooth chore­og­ra­phy.

Buck­ing­ham Palace has re­leased a pho­to of the two men shak­ing hands. The cer­e­mo­ny known as “kiss­ing hands” marks the trans­fer of pow­er.

The palace said in a state­ment that the king “re­ceived in au­di­ence the Rt. Hon. An­drew Burn­ham MP and re­quest­ed him to form a new Ad­min­is­tra­tion. The Rt. Hon An­drew Burn­ham MP ac­cept­ed The King’s of­fer and kissed hands up­on his ap­point­ment as Prime Min­is­ter and First Lord of the Trea­sury.”

Burn­ham is the sev­enth U.K. prime min­is­ter since 2016 in a now well-re­hearsed han­dover af­ter re­plac­ing Starmer as leader of the cen­tre-left gov­ern­ing Labour Par­ty on Fri­day.

Starmer made a short farewell speech out­side the prime min­is­ter’s 10 Down­ing Street res­i­dence, say­ing “my work is done.”

The out­go­ing leader, forced to re­sign by his own par­ty, said Britain is now “stronger and fair­er than it was two years ago,” when he took of­fice.

“I go with good grace, I go with a smile, and I go proud of every­thing that we have achieved,” Starmer said be­fore head­ing to Buck­ing­ham Palace to of­fer his res­ig­na­tion to the king. It was an of­fer “His Majesty was gra­cious­ly pleased to ac­cept,” the palace said in a state­ment.

The king will ask Burn­ham to take charge

Burn­ham then went to the palace in his turn and Charles will ask him to form a gov­ern­ment. That’s when he of­fi­cial­ly be­comes prime min­is­ter, a mo­ment known as “kiss­ing hands.”

The king’s role harkens back to a time when the monarch ex­er­cised supreme pow­er and chose a prime min­is­ter to run the gov­ern­ment. To­day, the king has no po­lit­i­cal pow­er, but the monarch still of­fi­cial­ly of­fers the job to the leader of the par­ty that can com­mand a ma­jor­i­ty in the House of Com­mons. No hand-kiss­ing is in­volved.

Britain’s par­lia­men­tary democ­ra­cy al­lows gov­ern­ing par­ties to change lead­ers, and thus prime min­is­ters, with­out the need for a gen­er­al elec­tion. The next na­tion­al poll doesn’t have to be held un­til 2029, though Burn­ham can call one soon­er if he wants.

From the palace, Burn­ham will go to Down­ing Street, where he will make his first speech as prime min­is­ter.

A spokesper­son said Burn­ham will say that he’s “acute­ly aware” of how many changes of leader the coun­try has been through in the past decade and will pledge to re­store sta­bil­i­ty.

Starmer said much the same when he took of­fice two years ago. Last month he an­nounced he would re­sign af­ter mis­steps and judg­ment er­rors that erod­ed his stand­ing with his par­ty and the pub­lic.

Burn­ham was the on­ly can­di­date in a con­test to be­come the par­ty’s new leader, se­cur­ing nom­i­na­tions from 379 of the 403 Labour law­mak­ers in the House of Com­mons.

The new leader pledges a new style of pol­i­tics

The for­mer may­or of Greater Man­ches­ter has pledged to make pol­i­tics “less tox­ic,” im­prove liv­ing stan­dards across the coun­try and “bring back the hope we have all been miss­ing.”

“I will work to build a new pol­i­tics,” he said af­ter be­com­ing Labour leader on Fri­day. “The coun­try is cry­ing out for it.”

Crit­ics and sup­port­ers alike will soon be clam­our­ing for de­tails of how Burn­ham plans to ful­fil his pledges.

“Fun­da­men­tal­ly, it on­ly will work if you can gen­er­ate sig­nif­i­cant eco­nom­ic growth, be­cause it’s the lack of growth that’s re­al­ly hold­ing the coun­try back,” said Joshi Her­rmann, who has fol­lowed Burn­ham’s ca­reer as founder of Man­ches­ter news site The Mill.

At­ten­tion will quick­ly turn to who Burn­ham will ap­point to his Cab­i­net. He’s ex­pect­ed to make changes to Starmer’s top team, es­pe­cial­ly to the biggest jobs of Trea­sury chief, for­eign sec­re­tary and home sec­re­tary.

In his first speech as Labour leader, Burn­ham praised Starmer’s achieve­ments, say­ing he would “build on the foun­da­tion laid” by his pre­de­ces­sor.

Starmer be­came Labour leader in 2020 af­ter one of the par­ty’s worst elec­tions de­feats and led it to a land­slide vic­to­ry four years lat­er. But he was soon de­feat­ed by the chal­lenges of gov­ern­ing.

At his fi­nal Prime Min­is­ter’s Ques­tions ses­sion in Par­lia­ment on Wednes­day, Starmer de­fend­ed his gov­ern­ment’s record on the in­ter­na­tion­al stage — es­pe­cial­ly its sup­port for Ukraine — and its do­mes­tic pol­i­cy achieve­ments. He men­tioned stronger pro­tec­tions for work­ing peo­ple, a re­duc­tion in child pover­ty, a law de­signed to stop of­fi­cial cov­er-ups af­ter tragedies, and high­er de­fence spend­ing.

“In six and a half years, I took our par­ty from a his­toric de­feat in 2019, changed it so it was fit to face the coun­try and won a land­slide gen­er­al elec­tion vic­to­ry in 2024,” Starmer said in his fi­nal re­marks be­fore leav­ing Down­ing St, hand-in-hand with his wife Vic­to­ria.

“Since then, it has been the priv­i­lege of my life to serve you and this great coun­try as prime min­is­ter. I am con­fi­dent that Britain is now stronger and fair­er than it was two years ago.” —LON­DON (AP)

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Sto­ry by JILL LAW­LESS | As­so­ci­at­ed Press