UK election: What's happened and what comes next?
The Labour Party has won the UK general election and Sir Keir Starmer will become the new prime minister. The result ends 14 years of Conservative government, during which five different prime ministers have run the country, BBC reports.
Rishi Sunak, the outgoing PM, conceded at around 04:40 in the morning, acknowledging Labour had won and saying that he had called Sir Keir to congratulate him. In his victory speech minutes later, the Labour leader promised "national renewal" and that he would put "country first, party second". The former chief prosecutor and human rights lawyer has reason to be happy - his party is going to win a huge majority in Parliament. On the other side, Robert Buckland, a former Conservative minister who lost his seat, described it as "electoral Armageddon" for the Tories. It's been a long night of results and there's plenty more action to come. Here's what's happening, and what it all means.
A new PM within a day
Things move pretty fast in British politics - there is very little time between an election result and the installation of the new prime minister. Rishi Sunak will be out of 10 Downing Street - the British equivalent of the White House - within 24 hours, and Sir Keir Starmer will be installed swiftly afterwards. But there is a process. Mr Sunak will offer his resignation to the King, and Sir Keir will formally invited by the monarch to form the next government in a meeting that normally happens at Buckingham Palace.
So who is Keir Starmer?
He's fairly new to politics, relatively speaking. Sir Keir started his professional life as a barrister in the 1990s, and was appointed the director of public prosecutions, the most senior criminal prosecutor in England and Wales, in 2008.
He was first elected in the Holborn and St Pancras constituency in north London in 2015, and took over leadership of Labour after the party's poor 2019 general election, pledging to start a "new era" after the left-wing leadership of Jeremy Corbyn. Sir Keir was re-elected in the same constituency on Thursday, saying in his victory speech people were "ready for change" and promising an "end the politics of performance".
"The change begins right here because this is your democracy, your community, your future," he said. "You have voted. It's now time for us to deliver."
