New British prime minister Keir Starmer spoke of Labour’s victory in the UK general election as a “sunshine of hope”, but it was raining heavily in London on Friday morning.
The brutal finalities of the British general election means there is no finessing or negotiation after the voting is done. Outgoing prime minister Rishi Sunak went to King Charles and then in the back entrance to Downing Street addressed the public and staff and left via the front entrance to a cacophony of boos from the assembled crowd outside.
Chief among them was arch-Remainer and tormentor of Brexiteers Steve Bray, who has made a name for himself in recent years protesting outside Downing Street. He was the one who played the Labour 1997 theme tune Things Can Only Get Better while Sunak was announcing the election.
He was banned from every street around Whitehall and the British parliament, but undeterred, he turned up with his boom box and started pumping out So Long Farewell from the Sound of Music and the Bay City Rollers song, Bye Bye Baby, in which he changed the word “baby” to Tories.
Key election 2024 battles: maps show where Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and Sinn Féin hope to gain - and may lose - seats
Schisms and sleaze plague Keir Starmer’s first Labour conference, risking long-term damage
Cities need to be run in new ways, and not just by officials, or councillors, says former British mayor
‘It’s only right that families are given every chance to get to the truth’: Legacy Act change welcome
Several Metropolitan policemen told him to stop and that he was causing a public order incident, to which Bray and his indignant followers accused the officers of being undemocratic. When the police turned off his boom box he started yelling through his megaphone at the gates of Downing Street.
Two hours later the crowd had swollen in Whitehall. They had come to get a glimpse of the Britain’s great political hope, but he too opted for the tradesman’s entrance and they were disappointed.
Starmer, unlike his hapless predecessor, got lucky with the weather. It dried up.
The tourists on their open-topped buses got a better view of proceedings in Downing Street as Starmer shook hands with a select number of Labour Party supporters behind the gates at Downing Street.
The crowd outside listened and watched the speech on their mobile phones as Starmer called for a time of “national renewal and to public service”.
Still, many of them wouldn’t have missed it for the world. Julia Rockett, a constituency worker for Rotherham MP Sarah Champion, wore a “Sparkle with Starmer” t-shirt.
“I have waited for this day since Tony Blair won in 1997. It’s just amazing to see it as an adult. I was 20 in 1997, not interested in politics,” she said.
“I have campaigned every day for the last six weeks and I’m absolutely shattered but it has been worth it. It is just amazing.”
John Stormer from Essex said the Tories were the “most self, self-interested crowd I have ever come across. I hate them. I just wanted to come here to make sure they were gone”.
- Sign up for push alerts and have the best news, analysis and comment delivered directly to your phone
- Join The Irish Times on WhatsApp and stay up to date
- Listen to our Inside Politics podcast for the best political chat and analysis
