Andy Burnham officially became Britain’s prime minister on Monday, formally “kissing hands” with King Charles III at Buckingham Palace and taking over from Keir Starmer in a carefully choreographed handover that made him the seventh person to lead the country in a single decade.
Andy Burnham has officially become UK prime minister after a meeting with King Charles III at Buckingham Palace, according to a statement released by the palace Monday. A photograph released from the audience showed Burnham wearing a dark suit and tie standing alongside the King.
“His Majesty received in audience the Rt Hon Andrew Burnham MP and requested him to form a new Administration,” the palace statement said. “The Rt Hon Andrew Burnham MP accepted The King’s offer and kissed hands upon his appointment as Prime Minister and First Lord of the Treasury.” The palace added that Burnham’s wife, Marie-France van Heel, was also received by the King during the audience.
An Idiom Without An Actual Kiss
The phrase used in the palace’s official statement, “kissed hands,” describes a centuries-old constitutional custom rather than a literal act. No hand-kissing actually takes place in the modern ceremony; instead, the incoming prime minister has a private audience with the monarch, who formally invites them to form a government on behalf of whichever party commands a majority in the House of Commons.
The tradition dates to an era when the monarch held genuine political power to select the country’s leader; today, the King’s role is a ceremonial formality that nonetheless remains the precise constitutional moment at which a new prime minister takes office- not the party leadership contest that precedes it, and not any public announcement, but this brief and largely private audience at the palace.
Keir Starmer has formally resigned as prime minister after tendering his resignation to King Charles III at Buckingham Palace. Credit: X
A Handover Choreographed Down To The Minute
Monday’s ceremony followed the same sequence that has now played out repeatedly across Britain’s recent run of leadership churn. Starmer delivered his final statement as prime minister outside Downing Street before making the short journey to Buckingham Palace to formally resign to the King.
Burnham then arrived at the palace himself, where Charles accepted his acceptance of the offer to form a government, formally completing the transfer of power. Burnham was expected to return afterwards to Downing Street, where he would deliver his own address as prime minister before meeting with staff inside Number 10 for the first time in his new role. A spokesperson said ahead of the speech that Burnham intended to tell the country he is “acutely aware” of how many changes of leadership Britain has endured over the past decade, framing his premiership as an attempt to restore a measure of stability.
From Manchester Mayor To Number 10 In Six Weeks
The speed of Burnham’s ascent has been remarkable even by the standards of Britain’s recent political turbulence. A week after May’s local elections dealt Labour a heavy blow, the sitting MP for Makerfield, another Greater Manchester constituency, stepped down specifically to clear a path for Burnham to run for the seat and, ultimately, for the premiership itself.
Burnham went on to win the resulting by-election resoundingly, and was sworn in as an MP the following Monday, the same day Starmer announced his own resignation as prime minister, setting in motion the leadership contest Burnham would go on to win essentially uncontested, securing the backing of the overwhelming majority of Labour MPs in the House of Commons.
Britain’s Seventh Prime Minister In A Decade
Burnham’s appointment makes him the seventh person to lead Britain’s government since 2016, a pattern of leadership turnover largely attributed to the sustained political aftershocks of Britain’s vote to leave the European Union. Four of Britain’s last six prime ministers took office through the same internal party mechanism rather than a general election, Theresa May and Boris Johnson in the 2010s, followed by Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak in more rapid succession after Johnson’s own resignation.
Britain’s parliamentary system permits such changes precisely because the country’s constitution ties the premiership to whoever can command a majority in the Commons, rather than requiring a fresh national vote each time that majority changes hands within a governing party.
With the formalities of Monday’s transition now complete, attention turns to how quickly Burnham can begin addressing the demanding in-tray he inherits, including a sluggish economy, elevated government borrowing costs, pressure over irregular migration, and the knock-on effects of the ongoing US-Iran war on global energy prices.
Burnham is expected to begin appointing his cabinet in the hours following his first Downing Street address, with speculation already swirling in recent days over whether Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood will be named chancellor in place of early frontrunner Ed Miliband. For now, though, Monday’s ceremony at Buckingham Palace stands as the singular, constitutionally decisive moment of the transition, the instant at which, regardless of the weeks of political manoeuvring that preceded it, Andy Burnham formally became prime minister of the United Kingdom.
