LONDON — Hundreds of newly elected lawmakers excitedly entered Parliament on Tuesday after the U.K. transformative choice brought a Labor government to power.
The corridors of the labyrinthine building echoed with the lively talks of the 650 members of the House of Commons, 335 of whom were arriving for the first time. That compares to 140 new lawmakers after the last election in 2019.
The seat of British democracy took on a back-to-school feel, from the rows of lockers temporarily installed in wood-paneled hallways to staff holding “Ask Me” signs ready to help bewildered newcomers.
The new House of Commons includes the largest number of women ever elected (263, about 40% of the total) and the largest number of black legislators, 90.
The youngest new legislator is Labor’s Sam Carling, 22 years old. He is one of the 412 labor legislators elected last week and who will be crammed into the Green seats on the Government side of the House of Commons.
Facing them will be a small contingent of 121 conservatives, a much larger number of Liberal Democrats72 people, and a handful of representatives from other parties, including the environmentalist Green Party and the fight against immigration UK Reform.
Even as the newcomers arrived, lawmakers who lost their seats last week carried the contents of their offices in boxes and suitcases.
The legislators’ first task was to elect a speaker to oversee the affairs of the House of Commons and try to keep the often unruly assembly in order.
The speaker is chosen from the ranks of legislators and sets aside his party affiliation while playing the impartial role.
Lindsay Hoyle — originally elected by the Labor Party to the position of president in 2019 — was re-elected without opposition. He promised lawmakers that he would remain “fair, impartial and independent.”
According to tradition, the speaker would feign reluctance and be dragged to his chair by his colleagues, a custom dating back to the days when speakers could be sentenced to death if they did not please the monarch.
After tributes from party leaders, including the Prime Minister Keir Starmer and conservative leader Rishi Sunak, The president-elect was brought to the House of Lords by an official known as Black Rod to receive the Royal Assent, the formal approval of King Charles III.
Starmer said all lawmakers had a responsibility to “end a politics that too often seemed self-serving and self-obsessed, and replace that politics of performance with the politics of service.”
Sunak, fresh from the Conservatives’ crushing election defeat, agreed that “in our politics, we can argue vigorously, as the Prime Minister and I did over the last six weeks, but still respect each other.”
With a speaker in place, the legislators took the oath one by one, swearing loyalty to the king and “his heirs and successors.” Members may swear on a religious text of their choice or make a non-religious statement. They must first take the oath in English and may repeat it in Welsh, Ulster Scots, Irish Gaelic, Scottish Gaelic or Cornish.
The longest-serving lawmakers, Conservative Edward Leigh and Labor’s Diane Abbott, known as the father and mother of the House, were sworn in first, followed by the Prime Minister and Cabinet, the senior members of the opposition. official and then the remaining legislators in order. of their length of service.
There are also seven lawmakers from the Irish nationalist party Sinn Féin, who refuse to swear allegiance to the Crown and do not take their seats to protest the UK’s control over Northern Ireland.
After all MPs are sworn in (a task expected to take several days), the House of Commons will adjourn until July 17, when a new session will formally begin with the State opening of Parliament.
The new government will set out its legislative plans for next year in a speech read by the king from atop a golden throne.
The King’s speech is expected to include plans to set up a public green energy company called Great British Energy, change planning rules to allow more new homes to be built and nationalize Britain’s delay-plagued railways.
Holding the government to account will be a much-reduced Conservative Party led, at least temporarily, by Sunak. The former prime minister will serve as opposition leader until the party elects a replacement.
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