The newly elected leader of the Labour Party, Andy Burnham, has been appointed this Monday as the new Prime Minister of the United Kingdom after accepting the commission from King Charles III of England to form a Government, following the resignation submitted by Keir Starmer.
The appointment took place during a hearing held at Buckingham Palace, shortly after Starmer officially communicated his resignation to the monarch. In that meeting, King Charles III formally requested Burnham to take charge of forming a new Executive, a proposal that the Labour leader accepted.
"His Majesty has received in audience the MP Andrew Burnham and has asked him to form a new Administration. Andrew Burnham has accepted the King's offer and they shook hands on the occasion of his appointment as Prime Minister," Buckingham Palace reported in a message on social media.
With this appointment, Burnham becomes the seventh head of Government to take the reins of the country in the last ten years, a period marked by political instability arising from the crisis opened after the referendum on the United Kingdom's exit from the European Union, held in June 2016.
His predecessor, Starmer, left the official residence of Downing Street this Monday emphasizing that he leaves a "stronger" economy and a "more solid" defense, and also reiterated his full support for the new British leader.
The former mayor of Manchester has established himself as the great bet of Labour to try to reverse the wear of the Government and relaunch the party. In a short period of time, he secured a seat in the House of Commons thanks to the by-elections in Makerfield, which allowed him to run in the party's internal primaries, in which he dominated by garnering 349 endorsements from Labour MPs.