UK election results: Keir Starmer announces Cabinet, appoints first woman Chancellor, 13% ethnic minorities

The United Kingdom has elected the most diverse Parliament in its history. Newly elected Prime Minister Keir Starmer will be overseeing a House that looks more ethnically diverse and includes a higher number of female members, after securing a resounding victory in general elections that ended the 14-year-long Conservative rule.

Soon after assuming charge as the 58th Prime Minister, Starmer (61) made Rachel Reeves Britain’s first female chancellor as he appointed a new cabinet.

Rachel Reeves will be the first female lawmaker to hold the second top position in UK Parliament in the last 708 years. Rachel Reeves played a significant role in the electoral campaign.

Think tank British Future stated that 13 per cent of the UK Parliament will be represented by Black, Asian, and ethnic minority lawmakers, an increase of 10 per cent in 2019, news agency AFP reported.

According to the think tank, a record number of 87 ethnic minority lawmakers have been elected, an increase of 21.

As many as 66 out of the 87 of these lawmakers will represent the Labour Party in Parliament.

According to the 2021 census data, 18 per cent of the total British population belongs to a non-white ethnic group.

Minority representation in the UK’s parliament has spiked from zero to nearly one in seven lawmakers in the last 44 years.

“The 2024 election is a landmark for representation, with record diversity in our parliament, closer than ever to that of the electorate,” Sunder Katwala, director of British Future, was quoted as saying by AFP in its report.

“The irony that it coincides with the end of Rishi Sunak’s premiership as the UK’s first British Asian Prime Minister only underlines how ethnic diversity has become a new norm across the main political parties,” he added.

The new Parliament will witness a record 242 female lawmakers, up from 220 in 2019.

It must be noted that when Britain’s first Black female lawmaker, Diane Abott, secured a seat in Parliament in 1987, there were just 41 female MPs in the House of Commons.