Hundreds of newly elected lawmakers on Tuesday trooped excitedly into Parliament after the UK’s election brought a Labour government to power.
The halls of the labyrinthine building echoed with excited chatter of the 650 members of the British House of Commons — 335 of them arriving for the first time. That compares with 140 new lawmakers after the previous 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 corridors to the staff holding “Ask Me” signs ready to help bewildered newcomers.
Photo: AFP / UK Parliament
The new House of Commons includes the largest number of women ever elected — 263, or about 40 percent of the total — and the most lawmakers of color, at 90.
The youngest new lawmaker is Labour’s Sam Carling, 22. He is one of 412 Labour legislators elected last week who are to cram onto green benches on the government side of the House of Commons.
Opposite them is to be a shrunken contingent of 121 Conservatives, a vastly increased number of Liberal Democrats, 72 strong, and a smattering of representatives from other parties, including the Green Party and Reform UK.
Photo: AFP / UK Parliament
Even as the newcomers arrived, lawmakers who lost their seats last week were carting away the contents of their offices.
The first task for lawmakers was electing a speaker to oversee the business of the House of Commons and try to keep the often unruly assembly in line.
The speaker is chosen from the ranks of lawmakers and sets their party affiliation aside while they fill the impartial role.
Lindsay Hoyle — originally elected for Labour to the speaker’s post in 2019 — was re-elected unopposed.
He promised lawmakers he would continue to be “fair, impartial and independent.”
In keeping with tradition, the speaker feigned reluctance and was dragged to the speaker’ chair by colleagues — a custom dating to the days when speakers could be sentenced to death if they displeased the monarch.
After tributes from party leaders, including British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and Conservative leader Rishi Sunak, the speaker-elect was taken to the House of Lords by an official known as Black Rod to receive Royal Approbation, the formal approval of King Charles III.
Starmer said that all lawmakers had a responsibility “to put an end to a politics that has too often seemed self-serving and self-obsessed, and to replace that politics of performance with the politics of service.”
Sunak, fresh off the Conservatives’ election defeat, agreed that “in our politics, we can argue vigorously, as the prime minister and I did over the past six weeks, but still respect each other.”
With a speaker in place, lawmakers were sworn in one by one, taking an oath of allegiance to the king and “his heirs and successors.”
The longest-serving lawmakers — Conservative Edward Leigh and Labour’s Diane Abbott, known as the father and mother of the House — were sworn in first, followed by the prime minister and the Cabinet, senior members of the official opposition and then remaining lawmakers in order of their length of service.
There are also seven lawmakers from Irish nationalist party Sinn Fein, who refuse to swear loyalty to the Crown and do not take their seats to protest UK control over Northern Ireland.
After all of the members are sworn in — a task expected to take several days — the House of Commons is to rise until July 17, when a new session is to formally start with the State Opening of Parliament.
The new government will set out its legislative plans for the coming year in a speech read by the king from atop a golden throne.
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