During the State Opening of Parliament on Wednesday, the rituals and theatrics of the constitutional monarchy were on full display, designed to project stability and bestow legitimacy during transitions of power.
The elaborate costumes and royal trumpeters may have seemed especially over the top when power passed from one Conservative Party government to another under a succession of five Conservative prime ministers. But Wednesday really did mark a dramatic moment here.
As a result of the landslide election on July 4, the key players have swapped roles. Household names have been written out of the script. New plotlines are emerging.
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Walking together into Westminster on Wednesday, new prime minister Keir Starmer and defeated prime minister Rishi Sunak chatted in a friendly, animated fashion, like sportsmen after a hard-fought match. Sunak remains head of the Conservative Party — now relegated to the opposition benches — until his replacement is chosen.
Starmer and his cabinet picks officially started on July 5. Already, Starmer has represented Britain at NATO, shaken hands with President Biden in the Oval Office and ditched some of Sunak’s plans, such as deporting asylum seekers to Rwanda. But Wednesday was when the new government laid out its priorities, defining the “change” slogan at the heart of Labour’s winning election campaign.
In a speech read, in accordance with tradition, by the monarch, the government detailed ambitious legislative goals, with a raft of 40 bills on the way.
“Even just the crude number of bills” speaks to the “level of ambition” of this new government, said Anand Menon, a politics professor at King’s College London. Sunak’s government mentioned 21 bills last time.
Menon said the “massive” legislative agenda represented a belief in interventionist government. It’s a recognition that “the state has a role to play. There will always be arguments to how far that can and should go.”
Some of the new agenda reflects more traditional Labour ideas about government. The King’s Speech highlighted plans to nationalize rail service and create a publicly owned clean-power company, headquartered in Scotland.
But Starmer’s rebooted Labour Party also emphasizes the importance of public-private partnerships and “wealth creation for all communities.” It wants to boost the economy by encouraging the construction of homes and infrastructure. It wants to stop local governments from blocking new building.
“Securing economic growth will be a fundamental mission,” the king read.
Britain is the sixth-largest economy in the world, but people here have felt the pinch of wages falling behind the costs of daily life. And growing the economy will be essential to fund all that Labour wants to do without broadly raising taxes.
Starmer and his ministers have been keen to blame the state of the country’s coffers on 14 years of Conservative Party rule.
“National renewal is not a quick fix,” the prime minister said during the parliamentary debate after the speech. “The rot of 14 years will take time to repair.”
The first lines of the King’s Speech began: “My government will govern in service to the country. My government’s legislative program will be mission-led and based upon the principles of security, fairness and opportunity for all.”
That may resonate with this king, who has framed his own job as being in service to the people.
Charles read the speech in a dispassionate voice. By tradition, it is not high oratory, and the monarch is expected to remain nonpartisan. But Charles is also known as a lifelong climate advocate — which created some awkwardness during the last King’s Speech, when he had to read out the Sunak government’s plans for a new system of awarding oil and gas licenses.
This time, Charles read, “My government recognizes the urgency of the global climate challenge.”
Labour argues that economic growth and a green-energy transition don’t need to be in tension. As part of its “Green Prosperity Plan,” it has pledged to help create 650,000 jobs by 2030, as well as to work with the private sector to double onshore wind, triple solar power and quadruple offshore wind.
Climate activists praised the new tone on Wednesday. “This King’s Speech is a WORLD AWAY from last year’s: a significant step change in political leadership on climate,” Greenpeace posted on social media. But environmentalists also criticized Labour for not being bold enough. The party dropped an earlier pledge to spend 28 billion pounds ($36 billion) a year on environmental projects if it won the election
Sunak led the opposition’s response in Parliament. He joked about how quickly in British politics people may find “you have a bright future behind you, and you are left wondering whether you can credibly be an elder statesman at the age of 44.”
Sunak objected to the new government’s scrapping of his plan to deport asylum seekers to Rwanda, saying that without a deterrent, people will continue to try to cross the English Channel illegally in small boats. But the Rwanda plan repeatedly ran into legal obstacles, and Starmer, a former human rights lawyer, was never going to push it. Instead, the King’s Speech mentioned a new “Border Security Command” as well as enhanced powers to treat people-smugglers like terrorists.
Sunak also asserted that Labour inherited an economy that was on an upward trajectory, and that given that all the books were open, it was disingenuous for new ministers to claim that public finances were worse off than anyone had realized.
Although Charles was just the messenger on Wednesday, it was one of the highest-visibility days for the king since he revealed in February that he was beginning treatment for cancer. (What kind of cancer and what kind of treatment have not been disclosed.)
The rituals of the State Opening of Parliament involve many oddities. Before the king’s arrival, royal bodyguards searched the cellars for explosives. This is a nod to Guy Fawkes’s 1605 “gunpowder plot,” a botched attempt by English Catholics to blow up Protestant King James I and Parliament.
Also by tradition, Black Rod, a senior official in the House of Lords, had the door to the House of Commons slammed in her face — representing the House of Commons’ independence from the monarch.
Another lawmaker was held “hostage” at Buckingham Palace during the ceremony, which is meant to guarantee the monarch’s safe return.