King’s Speech: Charles unveils Keir Starmer’s plans for Britain in state opening of parliament

CNN
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In his first royal address, Keir Starmer, Britain’s new prime minister, presented himself as an antidote to populism’s charms, unveiling sweeping plans targeting housing, crime, illegal immigration and the collapse of public trust.

King Charles III has formally opened a new session of Parliament by reading Starmer’s agenda in a grand event that brings together British royal pomp and political class, two weeks after his landslide victory landslide election victory It decisively ended the 14-year Conservative era.

The speech focused on Starmer’s central slogan of “national renewal”, and included pledges to nationalise Britain’s railways, tackle the housing crisis by changing planning laws to build more affordable homes, and step up efforts to tackle illegal immigration.

More broadly, Starmer has criticised the Conservative governments that have ruled Britain since 2010, as well as the wave of populism that has spread across the UK and Europe, in an attempt to claim a central place in Britain through a general push towards pragmatism.

“No more divisive issues. No more gimmicks,” Starmer told lawmakers in the House of Commons as debate on his agenda began, insisting his government would “solve problems, not exploit them.”

“The battle for trust is the battle that defines our political era,” Starmer said.

His 40-bill agenda includes measures designed to appeal to both older and younger generations, as Starmer seeks to maintain the broad coalition of voters that put him in Downing Street earlier this month. But his presentation of the agenda also includes an effort to counter the rise of populism in the UK and Europe. “The snake oil charm of populism may seem tempting, but it leads us down a dead end of ever greater division and disillusionment,” Starmer said.

While the speech outlined some of the growth-oriented vision Starmer set out during the summer election campaign, it was light on detail on other areas, including how Starmer would meaningfully strengthen UK border security after an election campaign disrupted by public concern about small boats crossing into the UK.

Starmer has chosen to avoid some of the thorny constitutional and voting changes he pledged to make during the campaign, including a cap on the age of peers allowed to sit in the House of Lords, and lowering the voting age to 16.

glitz and politics collide

The State Opening of Parliament is a rare collision of pomp and politics, involving a series of centuries-old ceremonies and customs that surprise even many British lawmakers.

The show began as King Charles III and his wife Camilla made their way by carriage from Buckingham Palace to the Houses of Parliament, before MPs were summoned by the Black Rod – a role established in the 14th century – to watch his speech in the House of Lords chamber.

Starmer and his defeated rival, Conservative Party leader Rishi Sunak, exchanged friendly conversation before and after the speech, their roles dramatically reversed after the July 4 election that saw Labour win a landslide majority in parliament, albeit with a modest share of the vote.

Once the speech began, the focus shifted to Labour’s first legislative plan in a decade and a half. The plan put at its heart the rebuilding effort, after a decade of stalled growth that saw housing and infrastructure projects across Britain stymied.

Starmer also formalised plans to renationalise Britain’s rail network in the coming years, and create a publicly owned renewable energy company.

Other parts of the speech continued Labour’s efforts to appeal to traditionally conservative voters who have lost faith in the Conservative Party after a turbulent period in government.

In particular, Starmer has promised to crack down on illegal immigration and small boat crossings across the Channel – an issue that has vexed successive Conservative governments and led to a surge in support for the UK’s Reform Party, a populist, anti-immigrant bloc that won more than 4 million votes in the election.

The speech pledged to give law enforcement more powers to investigate people smuggling, including stopping and searching migrants at the border, and to create a new Border Security Command. It also promised to address Britain’s massive asylum backlog, which has ballooned to nearly 100,000 people in recent years and has forced the government to house asylum seekers in hotels and detention centres for months while they wait for news of their applications.

Inside, many institutions were targeted for modernisation – most bizarrely, the very room in which Charles gave his speech. Under the government’s plans, hereditary peers would no longer be able to sit and vote in the House of Lords, in “a first step in a wider reform” of the chamber.

On the other hand, the new racial equality bill would make it mandatory for large employers to report wages based on race and disability in the same way they currently report wages based on gender.

Long-awaited legislation to ban gay and transgender conversion therapy – efforts to change someone’s sexual orientation or gender identity – was announced after it was first proposed by Theresa May in 2018 but never brought to the fore.

Starmer acknowledged a collapse in belief among the British public that politics can be a force for good – studies have suggested trust in politics is at an all-time low, after a long period dominated by scandals at Westminster.

But his agenda will be based on a great deal of scepticism about whether Britain’s public services can be revived without a much larger injection of money than the government is offering.

The speech focused little on the NHS or social care, where the priority would be management rather than new legislation.

After the Queen read Starmer’s speech, MPs gathered in the House of Commons to discuss Labour’s agenda, with former Prime Minister Rishi Sunak promising to lead the opposition constructively as a protracted contest to replace him as Conservative leader takes place.

“The opposition party has successfully exploited the public’s desire for change, but now they must deliver change,” Sunak said.

Sunak and Starmer had exchanged friendly talks earlier in the day – which Starmer said focused partly on the England football team – but the rigidity of British politics returned and tension crept back into the room as Sunak criticised the cancellation of his plan to deport some asylum seekers to Rwanda and claimed that Labour had inherited an economy on an upward trajectory thanks to his work.

Sunak urged Starmer to match his commitment to increase UK defence spending to 2.5% of GDP, saying it would “show the Americans that we don’t expect them to carry all the burden” within NATO.

These arguments are expected to intensify in the coming weeks, as Labour introduces its first bills to parliament – ​​starting with three priority measures from its speech later this week.