Starmer in first speech pledges tough decisions

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who led the Labor Party to a historic victory in the legislative elections, said on Saturday that his government will make tough decisions quickly, noting that change in the United Kingdom needs time.

This came in Keir Starmer's first press conference after assuming the British Prime Minister's Office.

Starmer said, "We have to make tough decisions with all integrity and frankness, and this does not mean that it is a prelude to imposing new taxes."

Tough decisions

He stressed that his government will make tough decisions quickly and diagnose the problems accurately, noting that "there are preparations and plans in place to manage the state... There is no place for self-interest in this government and our policies today are different."

Starmer criticized the government of his predecessor, Rishi Sunak, and said that it did not fulfill its promises despite the spending.

This is the first time since 2010 that the centre-left Labour Party has governed the country, in a development that ends the page of the Conservatives’ 14-year rule that witnessed a series of crises in recent years from “Brexit” to the “Covid pandemic” and inflation and frequent changes of prime ministers.

On Friday, King Charles III officially asked Starmer to form a government in the United Kingdom, and in accordance with the established custom, Buckingham Palace published a picture of the king welcoming the new prime minister.

Rwanda plan ends

Starmer confirmed that the newly formed government will not follow his predecessor’s policy of deporting asylum seekers arriving in the country in small boats to Rwanda, which ends the plan before any flights even take off.

Starmer said at a press conference: “The Rwanda plan is dead and buried before it began. It never provided a deterrent (to small boat crossings).”