Keir Starmer, Britain’s new prime minister, positioned himself as a remedy to “the snake oil charm of populism” on Wednesday, unveiling ambitious plans to address housebuilding, crime, illegal migration, and public trust during the first ceremonial King’s Speech of his government.
King Charles III formally opened the new parliamentary session by presenting Starmer’s agenda at a grand event that brought together Britain’s royal pageantry and political class. This occurred just two weeks after Starmer’s landslide election victory ended 14 years of Conservative rule.
Starmer’s speech focused on his central theme of “national renewal,” pledging to nationalize Britain’s railways, tackle the housing crisis by reforming planning laws, and intensify efforts against illegal migration.
In his address, Starmer criticized the Conservative governments that had ruled since 2010 and the rise of populism across the UK and Europe. He aimed to claim Britain’s center ground with a pragmatic approach.
“No more wedge issues. No more gimmicks,” Starmer declared to lawmakers in the House of Commons, emphasizing that his government would “solve problems, not exploit them.”
“The fight for trust is the battle that defines our political era,” he asserted.
Starmer’s 40-bill agenda includes measures designed to appeal to both older and younger generations, seeking to maintain the broad coalition of voters that brought him to Downing Street. He also aimed to counteract the rise of populism in the UK and Europe. “The snake oil charm of populism may sound seductive, but it drives us into the dead end of further division and greater disappointment,” he stated.
While the speech elaborated on some aspects of the growth-oriented vision Starmer promoted during the election campaign, it lacked details on other areas, such as bolstering Britain’s border security amid public concern over small boat crossings to the UK.
Starmer avoided some contentious constitutional and voting reforms he had promised during the campaign, including an upper age limit for peers in the House of Lords and lowering the voting age to 16.
The ceremonial event began with King Charles III and his wife, Camilla, traveling by carriage from Buckingham Palace to the Houses of Parliament, before MPs were summoned by Black Rod to hear the speech in the House of Lords chamber.
Starmer and his defeated rival, Conservative leader Rishi Sunak, shared a warm conversation before and after the speech, their roles dramatically reversed following the July 4 election that saw Labour win a landslide in parliament, despite a modest share of the votes.
Once the speech began, attention shifted to the first Labour legislative plan in 15 years, focused on building after a decade of stalled growth that had hindered housing and infrastructure projects across Britain.
Starmer formalized plans to renationalize Britain’s rail network and to create a publicly-owned renewable energy company.
Other parts of the speech aimed to appeal to traditionally conservative voters disillusioned with the Tory party after a tumultuous period in government.
Starmer promised a crackdown on illegal migration and small boat crossings across the Channel, an issue that plagued successive Conservative governments and fueled support for Reform UK, a populist anti-migrant bloc that garnered more than 4 million votes in the election.
The speech pledged additional powers for law enforcement to investigate people smuggling, including stop and search at the border, and the creation of a new Border Security Command. It also promised to address Britain’s vast asylum backlog, which has ballooned to nearly 100,000 people in recent years, forcing the government to house asylum seekers in hotels and detention centers for months while they await decisions on their claims.
Domestically, several institutions were targeted for modernization, including the House of Lords, where Charles delivered his speech. Under government plans, hereditary peers will no longer be able to sit and vote, marking a “first step in wider reform” of the chamber.
A new draft Race Equality Bill will make it mandatory for large employers to report ethnicity and disability pay in the same way they currently report gender pay.
Additionally, long-awaited legislation to ban both gay and transgender conversion therapy was announced, having been first proposed by Theresa May in 2018 but never enacted.
