Tributes and tears as Starmer takes final Prime Minister’s Questions
Chancellor Rachel Reeves, who was as usual next to Sir Keir in the front row, appeared to be close to tears.
Labor MP Carolyn Harris was also overcome with emotion as she told MPs “every day we see her kindness and courage shine through”.
Sir Keir will hand over power to Andy Burnham on Monday after the former Greater Manchester mayor was confirmed as Labor leader at a special Labor Party conference on Friday.
Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch refrained from attacking the outgoing Prime Minister’s record, instead praising him for his work on Ukraine and his friendship with the country’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky.
But he aimed to make some jokes at absent Labor MPs and their next leader, as he has been at every PMQ session since returning to Parliament last month.
Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey said Sir Keir was working with people in the House of Commons and described him as a “true patriot”.
The Prime Minister was followed by a number of his guests, including campaigners he met during his time in Downing Street.
Addressing some of them directly as he spoke, he said: “To everyone in the gallery whose lives have been changed or improved by this Labor government, and to everyone across the country who is struggling to be seen or heard, you are the reason I got into politics.”
Despite being forced out by his own MPs just two years after winning a landslide election victory, Sir Keir was greeted with cheers from Labor seats when he arrived in the House of Commons.
As is often the case in a prime minister’s final question session, his tone was softer and more cheerful than usual; There were many jokes about the by-election in Clacton, as well as England’s World Cup hopes.
But it started on a somber note, with Sir Keir paying tribute to former MP Ann Widdecombe.
He said the killing of three current or former MPs during his time in parliament was “chilling”.
Badenoch paid tribute to the former Conservative minister as a woman of “high principles” with a “wicked sense of humour”.
