Tag: Labour Party

Inside Canada’s euthanasia system where some chose to die due to poor care

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JUST eight years after euthanasia was legalised in Canada, some doctors there say the result is “horrendous” as more and more people are driven to it by a failing health-care system.

Assisted deaths have risen at an alarming rate, while the criteria to be given a lethal injection has been relaxed.

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Alicia Duncan, left, with her late mother Donna, who was helped to take her own lifeCredit: Supplied

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Pro-assisted dying supporters at WestminsterCredit: EPA

Now experts warn it would be disastrous to allow a system like Canada’s Medical Assistance In Death (Maid) in the UK, after the families of some of those who opted for it revealed they did so because they could not access medical help.

Professor Leonie Herx, a Canadian palliative medicine consultant based in Calgary, Alberta, described the outcome as “horrific from a medical perspective”.

In 2017, the first full year the legislation was in place, one per cent of deaths in Canada were from euthanasia.

By 2022, it was four per cent, as 13,241 people opted for Maid.

Now, in the UK, a bill to legalise the early ending of life has been introduced in Parliament by Labour MP Kim Leadbeater.

A free vote is expected before Christmas — and PM Sir Keir Starmer has welcomed the debate.

‘Burden on care-givers’

Supporters insist the bill is strictly to help the terminally ill.

Ms Leadbeater said: “I believe that, with the right safeguards in place, people who are already dying and are mentally competent should be given the choice of a shorter, less painful death on their own terms and without placing family and loved ones at risk of prosecution.

“It will not undermine calls for improvements to palliative care. Nor will it conflict with the rights of people with disabilities to be treated equally and have the respect and support they are right to campaign for in order to live fulfilling lives.”

But this is very similar to how Canada’s law was introduced — and now the rules there have softened and the numbers resorting to euthanasia have soared.

My parents held hands as they passed away by assisted dying – we supported ‘beautiful’ decision, it wasn’t a surprise

When Maid was introduced in Canada in 2016, it was limited to the terminally ill.

But following a legal challenge in 2021 it was made available to those whose death was NOT “reasonably foreseeable”.

A further change due to come into force in March 2027 will open up the service to people whose sole medical condition is MENTAL illness.

Doctors in Canada have approved assisted dying after just ZOOM calls, and some politicians want to extend the practice to CHILDREN old enough to make an “informed” choice.

Requests for Maid are now much more frequently approved in Canada than in 2019, when eight per cent of requests were denied.

In 2022, that figure fell to 3.5 per cent, a Health Canada report says.

I believe that, with the right safeguards in place, people who are already dying and are mentally competent should be given the choice of a shorter, less painful death on their own terms and without placing family and loved ones at risk of prosecution

Kim Leadbeater

The report adds that 17 per cent of those who applied cited “isolation or loneliness”, while nearly 36 per cent believed they were a “burden on family, friends or care-givers”.

The number of Canadians ending their lives via Maid — usually given in the form of an injection administered by a physician — has outpaced other nations with similar laws.

And its legislation has grown far looser than those of other countries offering assisted dying, such as Belgium and the Netherlands.

One expert claimed that what has happened in Canada could happen in the UK because both countries have a struggling health system and an ageing population.

Canadian-born Alexander Raikin, a researcher at the Ethics And Public Policy Centre in Washington DC, said: “Euthanasia in Canada was meant to be rare and last resort, but it isn’t. It has become routine.

“Assisted deaths have seen dram-atic rates of growth in all the places that have legalised it, like the Netherlands, Switzerland and Oregon in the US, but in Canada that rate has been quite unprecedented. The similarities between Canada and the UK . . . suggest the UK is likely to follow Canada’s route.

“I don’t think it is a coincidence that this massive surge happens at the same time our health system is collapsing. It should ring alarm bells in Britain.”

In an interview with the Sun on Sunday, Canadian Alicia Duncan told, from her home in Mission, British Columbia, how her “active and happy” mother was given a fast-track death in 2021. She opted for it because she could not get the healthcare she needed.

Alicia, 41, an interior designer, now warns the UK about the perils of following Canada’s lead.

Her mum Donna, a psychiatric nurse, suffered a brain injury in a minor car crash but despite not facing immediate death, and receiving treatment for mental health symptoms, the 61-year-old’s Maid request was granted.

Despite protests by her daughter and long-serving GP, she was helped to take her own life just 48 hours later.

Alica said: “People in Britain should be very worried about this.

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Now, in the UK, a bill to legalise the early ending of life has been introduced in Parliament by Labour MP Kim Leadbeater

“It won’t stop at terminal illness alone. The UK needs to look at what happened in Canada.

“People think, ‘This will never happen to me’. I never thought my mother, who was active and happy, would have chosen to end her life because of a mental illness, and been helped to do so.

“I would say to Britain, you need to be cautious because once you decide to open this door you don’t get to choose who walks through.

“The moment you legalise euthanasia it starts as a crack then it becomes a wide-open chasm and there is nothing you can do to stop it.”

Since their mother’s death, Alicia and her sister Christie have been denied key details about the circumstances and believe safe-guards to protect vulnerable people were not followed properly.

She added: “I am so angry. People are choosing to die because they can’t access healthcare in a timely manner.

The moment you legalise euthanasia it starts as a crack then it becomes a wide-open chasm and there is nothing you can do to stop it

Alicia Duncan

“My mum was waiting to see a specialist for 18 months and her appointment was the week after she died.

“It’s easier to die in Canada than to access healthcare.”

Here in the UK, Silent Witness actress and disability campaigner Liz Carr, 52, says the new bill is a slippery slope towards offering assisted dying to those who are simply ill, old or disabled.

Ms Carr — who has rare genetic condition arthrogryposis multiplex congenita, which affects her joints and muscles, and uses a wheelchair, warned: “These laws will put lives like mine, marginalised lives, at risk and those risks will be fatal.

“All because of the dangerous assumption some of us are better off dead. Let’s be aware, maybe it’s going to be like Canada, and that is terrifying.”

This week in Canada, a 51-year old gran from Nova Scotia told how doctors offered her Maid while she was in hospital about to undergo a mastectomy for breast cancer.

These laws will put lives like mine, marginalised lives, at risk and those risks will be fatal

Liz Carr

Before she went in for what she hoped was life-saving surgery, the doctor sat her down and asked: “Did you know about Medical Assistance In Dying?”

She was then asked again before undergoing a second mastectomy nine months later, and a third time while in the recovery room after that procedure.

Around three quarters of Brits support assisted dying, a survey this year from advocacy group Dying With Dignity found, while just 14 per cent of us oppose it.

Broadcaster Esther Rantzen, 84, who joined Dignitas after being diagnosed with stage four lung cancer, this week said she hopes the bill will pass, adding: “All I’m asking is that we be given the dignity of choice.

“If I decide my own life is not worth living, please may I ask for help to die.”

But the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, said of the bill: “This approach is both dangerous and sets us in a direction even more dangerous.

All I’m asking is that we be given the dignity of choice. If I decide my own life is not worth living, please may I ask for help to die

Esther Rantzen

“In every place where it’s been done, it has led to a slippery slope.

“The right to end your life could too easily, all too accidentally, turn into a duty to do so.”

‘BRITS, BE WARNED OF PERIL’

By Prof Leonie Herx, Professor of Palliative Medicine at the University of Calgary

IN Canada, a doctor-administered lethal injection has become the solution to almost any suffering, which is horrific from a medical perspective.

Any adult with a disability or chronic illness can get an “assisted death”.

There is no requirement to receive any treatment for even a reversible condition and sometimes it is the only “intervention” provided.

I have seen a person’s worst day become their last.

We are seeing people getting Maid for poverty, social isolation or deprivation.

It is routinely offered to any potentially eligible person as they access a care home, at time of surgery or during hospital admission for a health crisis.

It has altered the practice of medicine here and is leading to the premature death of many vulnerable people.

It has become something it never started as, something no Canadian could have imagined.

The UK should take warning.

Keep medicine invested in helping people restore their health and live well.

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Adam Sonin

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October 19, 2024
UK Elects new PM as Labour Party wins landslide victory: What’s happened next? – 247 News Around The World
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Last Updated on July 5, 2024 by 247 News Around The World
- Labour Party wins a landslide victory in the UK general election, ending 14 years of Conservative rule
- Keir Starmer is set to become the new Prime Minister, vowing to “rebuild Britain”
- Rishi Sunak concedes defeat and will step down as Conservative Party leader
- Gains for other parties, including the Liberal Democrats, Reform UK, and the Green Party
- Challenges ahead for Starmer include addressing economic issues and balancing domestic and international priorities
The UK has a new leader. Keir Starmer’s Labour Party won big in the recent general election. They earned a landslide victory.

The Conservative Party lost power after 14 years of governing. During that time, five different prime ministers led the country. Rishi Sunak was the most recent one.

Labour Party wins a landslide victory | Image source: NDTV

Sunak took responsibility for the result. He apologized to colleagues who lost seats. He spoke briefly outside 10 Downing Street on a rainy day. Sunak said he will resign as party leader in the coming weeks.

In his first speech as prime minister, Sir Keir greeted joyful Labour supporters on Downing Street. He vowed to start a “national renewal” period. He said he will put “country first, party second”.

“For too long, we ignored millions falling into worse situations,” he said. “I want to clearly tell those people: Not this time.”

“Changing a country is not as simple as flipping a switch. The world is more unpredictable now. This will take time, but change will start right away.”

This is a big shift from 2019. Back then, Labour suffered their worst defeat in almost 100 years under Jeremy Corbyn.

Former Conservative minister Robert Buckland lost his seat. He described it as “electoral Armageddon” for the Tories.

For the Conservatives, this is their worst result in nearly 200 years. An ideological battle over the party’s future direction is expected in the coming weeks.

The election night brought significant results. Here’s what they mean.

Labour experienced a massive victory

Britain’s House of Commons has 650 members of parliament (MPs). Each MP represents a specific area called a constituency.

So far, Labour has won 412 seats, while the Conservatives have only managed to secure 120 seats. The centrist Liberal Democrats have gained 71 seats. Reform UK, a successor to the Brexit Party, is set to win four seats, and the left-wing Green Party is also expected to secure four seats.

Labour’s surge was partly due to the decline of the Scottish National Party (SNP). The SNP has faced controversies related to its finances, leading to a significant drop in its seats, now holding only nine.

Labour’s expected 170-seat majority in the House of Commons is a substantial number, though still short of the majority of 179 seats the party won under Tony Blair in the 1997 election.

UK Elects New PM as Labour Wins Landslide | Image source: times of Israel

For comparison, the Conservatives’ win in the 2019 election under Boris Johnson, which was considered a strong performance, gave them a majority of 80 seats.

A reminder: If a party holds a majority, it means they don’t need support from other parties to pass laws. The larger the majority, the easier it is to govern.

However, Labour faced notable defeats in some areas with large Muslim populations, where independent candidates campaigning on pro-Gaza platforms won.

There has been growing pressure on Labour over its stance on the conflict. In February, the party called for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire, but critics argued that the party was slow to take this position.

Many centrist groups from different nations watched this vote closely. They worried that supporting Israel could turn away some of their own voters. People often feel strongly about world events and political matters. Simple language helps explain complex topics in a clear way for all readers to understand.

See Also | Labour’s Historic Win: Keir Starmer Takes Over 10 Downing Street
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247 News Around The World

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July 5, 2024
UK Labour Party sweeps to power in historic election win with Keir Starmer

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LONDON — Labour leader Keir Starmer officially became British prime minister on Friday hours after his Labour Party swept to power in a landslide victory after more than a decade in opposition.

Starmer was elevated to the nation’s leader after a private ceremony with King Charles III in Buckingham Palace.

In the merciless choreography of British politics, Starmer is taking charge in 10 Downing St. shortly after Conservative leader Rishi Sunak and his family left the official residence and King Charles III accepted his resignation at Buckingham Palace.

“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 farewell address.

Sunak had conceded defeat earlier in the morning, saying the voters had delivered a “sobering verdict.”

In a reflective farewell speech in the same place where he had called for the snap election six weeks earlier, Sunak wished Starmer all the best but also acknowledged his missteps.

“I have heard your anger, your disappointment, and I take responsibility for this loss,” Sunak said. “To all the Conservative candidates and campaigners who worked tirelessly but without success, I’m sorry that we could not deliver what your efforts deserved.”

Labour’s triumph and challenges

With almost all the results in, Labour had won 410 seats in the 650-seat House of Commons and the Conservatives 118.

“A mandate like this comes with a great responsibility,” Starmer acknowledged in a speech to supporters, saying the fight to regain people’s trust after years of disillusionment “is the battle that defines our age.”

Speaking as dawn broke in London, he said Labour would offer “the sunlight of hope, pale at first but getting stronger through the day.”

For Starmer, it’s a massive triumph that will bring huge challenges, as he faces a weary electorate impatient for change against a gloomy backdrop of economic malaise, mounting distrust in institutions and a fraying social fabric.

“Nothing has gone well in the last 14 years,” said London voter James Erskine, who was optimistic for change in the hours before polls closed. “I just see this as the potential for a seismic shift, and that’s what I’m hoping for.”

And that’s what Starmer promised, saying “change begins now.”

Anand Menon, professor of European Politics and Foreign Affairs at King’s College London, said British voters were about to see a marked change in political atmosphere from the tumultuous “politics as pantomime” of the last few years.

“I think we’re going to have to get used again to relatively stable government, with ministers staying in power for quite a long time, and with government being able to think beyond the very short term to medium-term objectives,” he said.

Britain has experienced a run of turbulent years – some of it of the Conservatives’ own making and some of it not – that has left many voters pessimistic about their country’s future. The U.K. divorce from the European Union followed by the COVID-19 pandemic and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine battered the economy, while lockdown-breaching parties held by then-Prime Minister Boris Johnson and his staff caused widespread anger.

Rising poverty, crumbling infrastructure and overstretched National Health Service have led to gripes about “Broken Britain.”

Johnson’s successor, Liz Truss, rocked the economy further with a package of drastic tax cuts and lasted just 49 days in office. Truss, who lost her seat to Labour, was one of a slew of senior Tories kicked out in a stark electoral reckoning.

While the result appears to buck recent rightward electoral shifts in Europe, including in France and Italy, many of those same populist undercurrents flow in Britain. Reform UK leader Nigel Farage roiled the race with his party’s anti-immigrant “take our country back” sentiment and undercut support for the Conservatives and even grabbed some voters from Labour.

Conservative vote collapses as smaller parties surge

The result is a catastrophe for the Conservatives as voters punished them for 14 years of presiding over austerity, Brexit, a pandemic, political scandals and internecine conflict.

The historic defeat – the smallest number of seats in the party’s two-century history – leaves it depleted and in disarray and will spark an immediate contest to replace Sunak, who said he would step down as leader.

In a sign of the volatile public mood and anger at the system, the incoming Parliament will be more fractured and ideologically diverse than any for years. Smaller parties picked up millions of votes, including the centrist Liberal Democrats and Farage’s Reform UK. It won four seats, including one for Farage in the seaside town of Clacton-on-Sea, securing a place in Parliament on his eighth attempt.

The Liberal Democrats won about 70 seats, on a slightly lower share of the vote than Reform because its votes were more efficiently distributed. In Britain’s first-past-the-post system, the candidate with the most votes in each constituency wins.

The Green Party won four seats, up from just one before the election.

One of the biggest losers was the Scottish National Party, which held most of Scotland’s 57 seats before the election but looked set to lose all but handful, mostly to Labour.

Labour was cautious but reliable

Labour did not set pulses racing with its pledges to get the sluggish economy growing, invest in infrastructure and make Britain a “clean energy superpower.”

But the party’s cautious, safety-first campaign delivered the desired result. The party won the support of large chunks of the business community and endorsements from traditionally conservative newspapers, including the Rupert Murdoch-owned Sun tabloid, which praised Starmer for “dragging his party back to the center ground of British politics.”

Conservative missteps

The Conservative campaign, meanwhile, was plagued by gaffes. The campaign got off to an inauspicious start when rain drenched Sunak as he made the announcement outside 10 Downing St. Then, Sunak went home early from commemorations in France marking the 80th anniversary of the D-Day invasion.

Several Conservatives close to Sunak are being investigated over suspicions they used inside information to place bets on the date of the election before it was announced.

In Henley-on-Thames, about 40 miles (65 kilometers) west of London, voters like Patricia Mulcahy, who is retired, sensed the nation was looking for something different. The community, which has long voted Conservative, flipped to the Liberal Democrats this time.

“The younger generation are far more interested in change,” Mulcahy said ahead of the results. “But whoever gets in, they’ve got a heck of a job ahead of them. It’s not going to be easy.”

Copyright © 2024 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.

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AP

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July 5, 2024
UK Labour Party sweeps to power in historic election win with Keir Starmer

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LONDON — Labour leader Keir Starmer officially became British prime minister on Friday hours after his Labour Party swept to power in a landslide victory after more than a decade in opposition.

Starmer was elevated to the nation’s leader after a private ceremony with King Charles III in Buckingham Palace.

In the merciless choreography of British politics, Starmer is taking charge in 10 Downing St. shortly after Conservative leader Rishi Sunak and his family left the official residence and King Charles III accepted his resignation at Buckingham Palace.

“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 farewell address.

Sunak had conceded defeat earlier in the morning, saying the voters had delivered a “sobering verdict.”

In a reflective farewell speech in the same place where he had called for the snap election six weeks earlier, Sunak wished Starmer all the best but also acknowledged his missteps.

“I have heard your anger, your disappointment, and I take responsibility for this loss,” Sunak said. “To all the Conservative candidates and campaigners who worked tirelessly but without success, I’m sorry that we could not deliver what your efforts deserved.”

Labour’s triumph and challenges

With almost all the results in, Labour had won 410 seats in the 650-seat House of Commons and the Conservatives 118.

“A mandate like this comes with a great responsibility,” Starmer acknowledged in a speech to supporters, saying the fight to regain people’s trust after years of disillusionment “is the battle that defines our age.”

Speaking as dawn broke in London, he said Labour would offer “the sunlight of hope, pale at first but getting stronger through the day.”

For Starmer, it’s a massive triumph that will bring huge challenges, as he faces a weary electorate impatient for change against a gloomy backdrop of economic malaise, mounting distrust in institutions and a fraying social fabric.

“Nothing has gone well in the last 14 years,” said London voter James Erskine, who was optimistic for change in the hours before polls closed. “I just see this as the potential for a seismic shift, and that’s what I’m hoping for.”

And that’s what Starmer promised, saying “change begins now.”

Anand Menon, professor of European Politics and Foreign Affairs at King’s College London, said British voters were about to see a marked change in political atmosphere from the tumultuous “politics as pantomime” of the last few years.

“I think we’re going to have to get used again to relatively stable government, with ministers staying in power for quite a long time, and with government being able to think beyond the very short term to medium-term objectives,” he said.

Britain has experienced a run of turbulent years – some of it of the Conservatives’ own making and some of it not – that has left many voters pessimistic about their country’s future. The U.K. divorce from the European Union followed by the COVID-19 pandemic and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine battered the economy, while lockdown-breaching parties held by then-Prime Minister Boris Johnson and his staff caused widespread anger.

Rising poverty, crumbling infrastructure and overstretched National Health Service have led to gripes about “Broken Britain.”

Johnson’s successor, Liz Truss, rocked the economy further with a package of drastic tax cuts and lasted just 49 days in office. Truss, who lost her seat to Labour, was one of a slew of senior Tories kicked out in a stark electoral reckoning.

While the result appears to buck recent rightward electoral shifts in Europe, including in France and Italy, many of those same populist undercurrents flow in Britain. Reform UK leader Nigel Farage roiled the race with his party’s anti-immigrant “take our country back” sentiment and undercut support for the Conservatives and even grabbed some voters from Labour.

Conservative vote collapses as smaller parties surge

The result is a catastrophe for the Conservatives as voters punished them for 14 years of presiding over austerity, Brexit, a pandemic, political scandals and internecine conflict.

The historic defeat – the smallest number of seats in the party’s two-century history – leaves it depleted and in disarray and will spark an immediate contest to replace Sunak, who said he would step down as leader.

In a sign of the volatile public mood and anger at the system, the incoming Parliament will be more fractured and ideologically diverse than any for years. Smaller parties picked up millions of votes, including the centrist Liberal Democrats and Farage’s Reform UK. It won four seats, including one for Farage in the seaside town of Clacton-on-Sea, securing a place in Parliament on his eighth attempt.

The Liberal Democrats won about 70 seats, on a slightly lower share of the vote than Reform because its votes were more efficiently distributed. In Britain’s first-past-the-post system, the candidate with the most votes in each constituency wins.

The Green Party won four seats, up from just one before the election.

One of the biggest losers was the Scottish National Party, which held most of Scotland’s 57 seats before the election but looked set to lose all but handful, mostly to Labour.

Labour was cautious but reliable

Labour did not set pulses racing with its pledges to get the sluggish economy growing, invest in infrastructure and make Britain a “clean energy superpower.”

But the party’s cautious, safety-first campaign delivered the desired result. The party won the support of large chunks of the business community and endorsements from traditionally conservative newspapers, including the Rupert Murdoch-owned Sun tabloid, which praised Starmer for “dragging his party back to the center ground of British politics.”

Conservative missteps

The Conservative campaign, meanwhile, was plagued by gaffes. The campaign got off to an inauspicious start when rain drenched Sunak as he made the announcement outside 10 Downing St. Then, Sunak went home early from commemorations in France marking the 80th anniversary of the D-Day invasion.

Several Conservatives close to Sunak are being investigated over suspicions they used inside information to place bets on the date of the election before it was announced.

In Henley-on-Thames, about 40 miles (65 kilometers) west of London, voters like Patricia Mulcahy, who is retired, sensed the nation was looking for something different. The community, which has long voted Conservative, flipped to the Liberal Democrats this time.

“The younger generation are far more interested in change,” Mulcahy said ahead of the results. “But whoever gets in, they’ve got a heck of a job ahead of them. It’s not going to be easy.”

Copyright © 2024 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.

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AP

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July 5, 2024
Who is Keir Starmer, the man who will be the next British prime minister?

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London — When Keir Starmer was elected to lead Britain’s Labour Party in 2020, right after the party suffered its worst general election defeat in 85 years, he made it his mission to make the party “electable.”

Four years later, after 14 years of governments led by the rival Conservative Party, Starmer is poised to take Britain’s top job.

With almost all the results in, Labour had won 410 seats in Parliament’s 650-seat House of Commons and the Conservatives 118.

Outgoing Prime Minister Rishi Sunak conceded, saying the voters had delivered a “sobering verdict.”

The 61-year-old Starmer has faced years of criticism for a perceived lack of charisma, but his methodical mission to drag Labour back toward the center of British politics and broaden its appeal to voters worked. Starmer and Labour have also, indisputably, capitalized on years of economic pain and political chaos under the Conservative Party, whose parliamentary majority was eviscerated.

Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer delivers a speech and takes media questions on July 2, 2024 in Norton Canes, Staffordshire, United Kingdom.

Chris Furlong / Getty Images

Professor Sir John Curtice, a political analyst and elections expert who, through decades of TV commentary has become something of a British national institution himself, told the BBC just a couple days before the election that there was “more chance of lightning striking twice in the same place” than Sunak remaining in power.

So Starmer will take the reins of government, but with the British people’s overall trust in politicians at rock bottom and a record number of British children living in poverty.

Where does Keir Starmer come from?

Sir Keir Starmer — the former lawyer was knighted for services to criminal justice — has, through years of chaos (you may remember Partygate, or perhaps even Prime Minister Liz Truss’ 50 days in power) projected an almost dull managerialism that appears to have become a beacon for a welcome return to political normalcy.

Starmer grew up in a small town in Surrey, just outside London. His mother worked for the National Health Service, Britain’s free public health care system, and his father was a toolmaker — a fact that Starmer repeated so often during the election campaign that it became a meme.

His mother suffered for all her life from Still’s disease, a type of inflammatory arthritis, and died only a few weeks after he was first elected to the British Parliament in 2015. His father died three years later. Starmer has said his relationship with his father was strained, and that never telling him, “I love you and I respect you” is “the one thing I do regret.”

Starmer was the first member of his family to go to university, after which he helped run a left-wing magazine called Socialist Alternatives. He then became a lawyer, rising up the ranks to become the head of public prosecutions in 2008, running the British government’s Crown Prosecution Service. He received his knighthood in 2014, the year before he turned to politics.

Despite his legitimate background in tackling serious crime, Starmer has never managed to shake the image of a relatively boring politician. He’s even leaned into it on occasion.

“If, in the end, that is the only bit of mud left to sling, then I’m pretty comfortable,” he told Britain’s ITV in January. “If they are calling you boring, you’re winning.”

What are Keir Starmer’s policies?

Throughout his tenure as Labour leader, Starmer has tried to make his party more electable by forcing out individuals seen as entrenched in its socialist left wing — the faction that ran the party under its previous leader, Jeremy Corbyn (whose cabinet Starmer served in, incidentally).

After Corbyn called the findings of an inquiry into antisemitism in the party “dramatically overstated,” Starmer suspended him.

“Sometimes you have to be ruthless to be a good leader,” Starmer told Esquire about the episode.

His public mantra has been “country before party.”

Starmer’s move toward centrism has been criticized by left-leaning members of his own party and others. He irked many by backtracking on several key pledges, including that Labour would increase income tax, scrap university tuition fees and nationalize the majority of Britain’s public services.

Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer speaks to media on the final day of campaigning before Britain’s national general election, July 3, 2024, in Whitland, Wales.

Matthew Horwood/Getty

He has also come under fire for Labour’s screeching u-turn on a green investment pledge worth more than $35 billion annually, and for equivocating on alleged Israeli war crimes in Gaza, despite his legal background.

In a recent speech, Starmer said he had a long-term “big, bold plan” for Britain. But he cautioned that “we need first steps.”

Those, according to the BBC, include clamping down on tax avoidance, shortening NHS patient waiting lists and recruiting more teachers and neighborhood police officers. He also wants to negotiate a better deal with the European Union, given the catastrophic economic consequences of the U.K.’s “Brexit.”

He said his unflashy election pledges were a “down payment” on what the Labour Party can offer Britain if it is given enough time.

“I’m not going to make a promise before the election that I’m not comfortable we can actually deliver,” he’s stressed.

“A lot of people on the left will accuse him of letting them down, betraying socialist principles. And a lot of people on the right accuse him of flip-flopping,” Tim Bale, a political scientist at Queen Mary University of London, told The Associated Press. “But, hey, if that’s what it takes to win, then I think that tells you something about Starmer’s character. He will do whatever it takes — and has done whatever it takes — to get into government.”

How might Starmer influence U.S.-U.K. relations?

With British and American election cycles coinciding for the first time since 1992, there’s a lot of uncertainty about how U.S.-U.K. relations could look by the end of the year.

Starmer has spoken admiringly of President Biden, particularly his focus on job creation and investment in domestic industry. The Economist even described him as “infatuated” with the American president.

Senior Labour figures have reportedly met secretly with Democratic counterparts already.

So, it’s expected that Mr. Biden would have a close ally in Starmer — if Mr. Biden is still the president in 2025.

Biden and U.K. Prime Minister Sunak vow to continue aid for Ukraine

06:54

If former President Donald Trump were to win in November, U.S.-U.K. relations would likely be less chummy.

Despite her being a Conservative and thus ostensibly on the same side of the political aisle, Trump had a difficult relationship with former Prime Minister Theresa May during his first term in office. He got on better with the more populist — and many say, more Trumpian — Boris Johnson.

“A Biden White House would find Starmer a well-wisher and useful spear-carrier,” Eliot Wilson, a former senior official in the U.K. House of Commons wrote in The Hill. “For Trump, he would prove a vague annoyance, and could not be counted on to echo the wilder MAGA phrasebook.”

The reality for U.K. leaders, from any party, almost a decade after Britain’s exit from the EU, is that the long-touted “special relationship” with Washington has never been more vital.

“We will work with whoever is elected,” Starmer has said. “We have a special relationship with the U.S. that transcends whoever the president is.”

What comes next?

Final results from Thursday’s voting will be published Friday morning, and Sir Keir will be the next British Prime Minister.

Sunak will resign and King Charles III will quickly take the necessary but largely ceremonial step of inviting Starmer to form a new government.

Starmer will then appear to make his first speech outside 10 Downing Street, the official residence of Britain’s top elected official.

Once the formalities are completed, Starmer will receive briefings from key members of the civil service and the intelligence community, select the members of his new cabinet and start taking phone calls from world leaders.

And then? Well, then there’s the often unglamorous business of running the country.

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Frank Andrews

Frank Andrews is a CBS News journalist based in London.

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July 5, 2024
Rishi Sunak awaits a multimillion-dollar payday after losing his $177,000 PM gig

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It’s official. Rishi Sunak is no longer the U.K. Prime Minister. His long and winding road to the Number 10 exit door has felt inevitable since he took over from the economically disastrous, short-lived Liz Truss government in the autumn of 2022.

But 44-year-old Sunak—reportedly found riding off into the Californian sunset on his Peloton before results landed—is more likely to be licking his lips at the future that awaits him than stewing over what could have been with another five years in office.

That’s because Sunak, a man who is technically richer than the King of England and has a past as a high-flying London banker, can prepare for a few more lucrative perks as he steps away from a life of service.

Sunak’s millions

As prime minister, Sunak was entitled to a salary of £80,000, in addition to his £91,346 salary as a member of parliament for his Richmond and Northallerton constituency. Tax records show that last year, he took home £139,000 ($177,000) from those roles.

His pay packet for leading the U.K. is a meager sum compared to what he got used to before entering politics and even his other forms of income while he held the job. Sunak made nearly £1.8 million in capital gains last year and paid a total of £500,000 in tax.

Sunak worked as a successful banker for years, starting at Goldman Sachs before achieving an MBA and returning to the lucrative hedge fund space.

According to an analysis by efinancialcareers, Sunak probably only earned less than £100,000 in his first three years out of university.

While working at the hedge fund TCI between 2006 and 2009 in his mid-20s, Sunak became a multimillionaire after he and his colleagues shared a £100 million pot after a lucrative bet in the buildup to the global financial crisis.

The hedge fund took an activist position in the Dutch bank ABN Amro in 2007, forcing its sale to the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS), which resulted in a £555.9 million profit. However, that acquisition saddled the Scottish bank with debt, leading to a £45.5 billion government bailout.

While Sunak’s biggest riches will probably come after he eventually resigns as an MP, there are several new income avenues he can eventually look forward to.

Evidence suggests that if Sunak returns to the finance world after he leaves politics, he will be in high demand.

Sunak’s fellow former chancellor George Osbourne has minted fresh millions through city advisory roles with groups including Blackrock and Robey Warshaw, in addition to his time editing London’s Evening Standard newspaper.

Or, he could take a cautious lesson from David Cameron. The man who served as PM between 2010 and 2016 landed himself in hot water over his role in the collapsed finance group Greensill Capital.

Cameron reportedly got $10 million from Greensill to lobby the government on behalf of the company, but his spokesperson disputed that figure.

Speaking engagements

The easiest mileage for Sunak’s bank account after leaving office will likely see him harness his years of training as a public speaker.

Tony Blair, the ninth-longest running PM of all time, set a marker after he retired, reportedly commanding £1 million in 2012 from his engagements. His Tory successors have been keen to follow that trend.

In the year between stepping down as prime minister and resigning as an MP, the mercurial Boris Johnson bagged millions of dollars from extracurricular activities as he settled into post-leadership life.

Documents from May 2023 show Johnson was paid around £3.5 million for speaking engagements after stepping down as PM. He also received a £510,000 advance on a book deal. Theresa May, Johnson’s predecessor, has also enjoyed the speaking circuit since quitting as PM in 2019.

Family wealth

What is unique for Sunak among his contemporaries, however, is that the PM never needs to work again.

Sunak and his wife, Akshata Murty, are worth a combined £651 million ($830 million), according to the latest Sunday Times Rich List, making him richer than King Charles.

The vast majority of that wealth comes from Murty’s holdings in the Indian IT company Infosys, which her billionaire father co-founded.

Murty’s wealth was a hot point of contention during Sunak’s premiership owing to her “non-dom” status, which meant she didn’t pay tax on income from shares in the foreign-owned Infosys. Murty vowed to pay U.K. tax on this after a media storm.

Sunak will remain an MP until he decides otherwise, like Boris Johnson or David Cameron before him.

But when he does go, the man who led the Tories to their worst defeat in nearly two centuries will quickly be absorbed into a multimillion-dollar corporate cushion shared by most of his former allies.

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Ryan Hogg

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July 4, 2024
UK General Election: Exit Poll Predicts Enormous Landslide Victory For Keir Starmer’s Labour Party, Ending 14 Years Of Conservative Domination

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The results are in, and Keir Starmer is on track to be Britain’s next Prime Minister.

The nationwide exit poll, which is not 100% accurate but rarely far off, has forecast an enormous majority for the Labour Party over the Conservatives of 279 seats, a majority that has been predicted by virtually every poll for months.

According to the exit poll, Labour will win 410 seats, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak‘s Conservatives will take 131 and the Liberal Democrats are in third on 61. There are 650 up for grabs. If the exit poll comes true, the win for Labour will be almost as large as Tony Blair’s momentous 1997 victory. Nigel Farage’s Reform UK party is predicted to gain 13 seats, far exceeding expectations, making it the country’s fourth biggest party.

Starmer, Sunak and hundreds of candidates across the UK will now spend the next few hours anxiously observing just how accurate the exit poll turns out to be. Unlike pre-election day polls that track voter intention, this huge countrywide poll directly asks voters at polling stations who they have just voted for, and is therefore far more accurate.

The first constituencies are expected to announce winners in an hour or so and the final overall result will likely be unveiled in the early hours of the morning.

Starmer’s landslide victory, which, if realized, will bring an end to 14 years of Conservative rule, comes as little surprise, although Labour has spent the past six weeks warning voters that the polls are not a foregone conclusion. Starmer has led the Labour Party since the disastrous previous election defeat in 2019. He lacks charisma, and has angered those on the left of the party due to a wealth of U-turns on radical policies, but he is broadly viewed as a safe pair of hands who has turned the party from oblivion to today’s electoral force.

An exit poll predicting that the Labour Party led by Keir Starmer will win 410 seats in Britain’s general election is projected onto BBC Broadcasting House in London. Image: OLI SCARFF/AFP via Getty Images.

Following the disastrous reigns of Liz Truss and Boris Johnson, Sunak’s 18-month stint in office has seen a steadying of the ship while rarely moving the dial. He ran a feisty campaign but it was littered with gaffes, including the rain-soaked election announcement and decision to leave the commemorative D-Day celebrations early, while has has had to face the re-emergence of Donald Trump’s pal Nigel Farage in the political sphere with his Reform UK party.

Reporting restrictions that have been in place for the past 15 hours while Brits have voted have now been lifted and audiences can tune in to the likes of the BBC, ITV, Channel 4, Sky News or even GB News to see how things unfold through the night. Our primer on those preparations can be found here and we will keep things ticking on deadline.com.

Unless the exit poll has had a rare off day, it looks like the UK will have a new Prime Minister by the morning.

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Max Goldbart

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July 4, 2024
2024 U.K. election is set to overhaul British politics. Here’s what to know.

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London — British voters will head to the polls Thursday to vote in the country’s first general election since 2019. Here’s what to know.

Who is up for election in the U.K.?

British voters will not be directly electing a new leader on Thursday. Under the United Kingdom’s parliamentary system, voters choose their local representatives for the lower house of Parliament, the House of Commons.

On Thursday, there are 650 parliamentary seats up for grabs, each of which will be occupied by one Member of Parliament (MP) in the House of Commons. For any single party to win an outright majority in the Commons, it would need to win at least 326 seats — over half of those available. Any party that does that gets to form the next government, with its leader becoming the prime minister. [Yes, King Charles III is Britain’s formal head of state. You can read here about what limited power that actually conveys.]

Parliament was formally dissolved on May 30 when current Prime Minister Rishi Sunak called the election, as is procedure, but prior to that, Sunak’s long-ruling Conservative Party held an outright majority of 345 seats, giving it significant power to set the policy agenda.

Labour Party leader Keir Starmer speaks during a live TV debate with Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, seen in the background, in Nottingham, England, on June 26, 2024, in the build-up to the U.K. general election.

PHIL NOBLE / POOL / AFP / Getty

The U.K. has what is called a first-past-the-post system, which means voters receive a ballot paper with a list of candidates from different parties and select only one of their choice. The candidate from each constituency with the most votes wins the seat — with no specific threshold required. So if, for instance, there are six candidates in a particular race, they will all be from different parties, and even if the candidate with the most votes only wins 25% of the total, they still win the seat.

If a voter believes their favorite candidate has a low chance of winning, they can chose to vote tactically and put their X next to another candidate’s name — effectively a second choice — if they feel that candidate has a better chance of winning. This tactic is generally seen as a way for a voter to help block a candidate deemed highly unfavorable, but who stands a reasonable chance of winning, from gaining the seat in a race.

In practice, this system means that a political party could win a healthy share of votes on a national level but not win a proportional share of the seats. Smaller political parties in the U.K. have long argued that the first-past-the-post electoral system has thus helped to cement the power of Britain’s two biggest parties — the incumbent right-leaning Conservative Party, often called the Tories, and their main rivals, the more left-leaning Labour Party.

What is the U.K. election timeline?

Voting begins in the U.K. general election on Thursday morning, and most constituency results are expected by early Friday morning, although this may take longer in some more rural parts of the country — particularly if the vote tally is close or subject to a recount.

There is usually an early indicator of the overall results of a U.K. general election as a joint exit poll is released by British broadcasters Sky News, ITV and CBS News’ partner network BBC News immediately after the polls close.

The exit poll generally provides an accurate representation of the final results and can be expected by about 10 p.m. on Thursday local time (5 p.m. Eastern).

U.K. election predictions and polling data

Polls and political analysts have predicted for many weeks that Labour will sweep to a landslide majority in Parliament. If the latest polling data proves accurate, Conservative Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s 18-month tenure will end and Britons will wake up Friday morning to a new party in charge of the country for the first time in 14 years.

Britons react to Rishi Sunak’s U.K. election announcement: “Political suicide”

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Those 14 years of Conservative rule have been marked by political and economic turmoil, with a rotating cast of five Conservative prime ministers occupying 10 Downing Street in the last eight years alone.

The latest polling by the major independent data analysis group YouGov shows Labour in the lead by a 17-point margin, with 37% of those polled saying they intend to vote for Labour versus 20% of the public who say they will cast their votes for the Conservatives.

Labour candidates are projected to win as many as 425 seats in the House of Commons, which would be a massive 223 seat gain for the party. The Conservatives are projected to hold onto just 108 seats, which would be a seismic loss of 257 seats.

Who is Keir Starmer, the likely next prime minister?

Keir Starmer was elected by party members to lead Labour in 2020, right after the party suffered its worst general election defeat in 85 years. He immediately declared it his mission to make the party “electable” again.

Four years later Starmer, 61, is poised to take Britain’s top job.

Labour Leader Sir Keir Starmer speaks to media on the final day of campaigning before Britain’s national general election, July 3, 2024, in Whitland, Wales.

Matthew Horwood/Getty

He’s faced frequent criticism for a perceived lack of charisma, but his efforts to drag Labour back toward the center of British politics to give it broader voter appeal seems to have paid off.

Throughout his leadership of the party, Starmer has methodically frozen out elements of Labour’s far-left, socialist-leaning wing, which ran the party under previous leader Jeremy Corbyn.

Starmer’s deliberate shift from socialism to centrism has been criticized by pundits and voters who hew to the left, and Labour may lose some votes to smaller parties such as the Liberal Democrats and the Green Party but, given the polling, it seems to have been a winning strategy overall.

Is Britain bucking the trend of Europe’s shift to the right?

A shift to a center-left Labour government in Britain would buck the trend in Europe, as far-right parties have been on the rise across the continent in recent years.

In the first round of voting in France’s parliamentary elections on Sunday, Marine Le Pen’s far-right, anti-immigration National Rally Party moved within reach of becoming the largest political party in France. The party took a third of the votes in a first round that drew a historically high turnout.

If voters maintain that trend in the decisive second round of voting on July 7, it will mark an unprecedented shift to the right for the French.

France’s far-right takes lead in first round of snap election

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Last month’s European parliamentary elections also saw a record number of far-right legislators win seats, with right wing candidates across Europe’s three main economies — Italy, France and Germany — making gains by campaigning on opposition to issues including immigration, support for Ukraine and green environmental policies.

While a Labour victory would be a move against those political winds on the continent, Britain has also seen a surge in support for far-right candidates in this election cycle.

Nigel Farage may be familiar to Americans as an ally of former President Donald Trump. His firebrand anti-immigrant rhetoric became hugely influential in the movement that led to Britain’s “Brexit” from the European Union.

After decades languishing on the far-right fringe of British politics, unable to win a seat in Parliament despite eight previous attempts, Farage looks set this year to finally claim the seat for his local constituency of Clacton, in southeast England.

A photo posted by British politician Nigel Farage on Nov. 12, 2016 shows him standing with Donald Trump at Trump Tower in Manhattan after a private meeting with the then-U.S. president-elect.

Nigel Farage/Twitter

Farage’s far-right Reform Party is only projected to pick up a total of about five seats in Parliament, including Farage’s own, but YouGov projects overall support for Reform nationally at about 15% of the electorate, and from its current position with zero seats in the House of Commons, it seems the party is heading for a significant increase in popularity.

Political analysts say Reform’s anti-immigrant messaging is largely eating into the Conservative Party’s vote share.

So while Farage won’t be taking power anytime soon, it looks like he is about to step back into the limelight of British politics and, with a sizable share of public support, he may find himself wielding an outsized influence on the politics of Britain’s Conservative Party as it tries to rebuild itself in the wake of what could be a devastating election.

CBS News’ Frank Andrews contributed to this report.

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July 3, 2024