Sir Keir Starmer used his final outing at PMQs to highlight his work ridding his party of antisemitism.
In his last exchange with Kemi Badenoch from across the dispatch box, the pair traded cordial remarks, in contrast to their usually feisty confrontations, with Badenoch joking: “I wanted to make sure that I got the tone right today.”
In her final question, the Conservative leader paid tribute to her Labour rival and used the opportunity to mock the circumstances that led to Andy Burnham, who will become prime minister on Monday, succeeding him and the failed attempts by other potential leadership challenges by his parliamentary colleagues.
“The prime minister may not think so now, but it is a tribute to him that not a single sitting Labour MP could beat him”, she said.
“Not the member for Ashton-under-Lyne [Angela Rayner] who couldn't count her taxes. Not the member for Sheffield Heeley [Louise Haigh], who couldn't count how many phones she lost”, she joked in reference to the former transport secretary’s resignation after it emerged she had previously pleaded guilty to a fraud offence.
“And definitely not the member for Ilford North [Wes Streeting, the former health secretary], who couldn't count to 81” – the number of MPs required to challenge the Labour leader in a contest for the top job.
“This is my last exchange with the right honourable gentleman, and I know how much his wife and children mean to him, and that they are in the gallery today.
"As everyone here knows, our families make a huge sacrifice for our choice to enter public life. So, I hope he will allow me to draw our time together to a close by thanking them for the love and support they have given him throughout his time in office.”
Starmer, whose wife Victoria is Jewish, thanked the Tory leader and extended similar wishes to her family.
“We have had robust exchanges across this dispatch box, but she has extended kindness to me privately at very difficult times, including when there was an attempt to burn down our family home, which deeply affected my family,” he responded.
"She reached out to me, and when my brother died of cancer, she reached out to me privately, not across this dispatch box. And I thank her for that and the tribute that she's just made to my wife and children, who mean the world to me, I do thank her for that.
“She knows this is robust and it has to be robust, and that's the way politics is done. But the kindnesses that sit behind it privately are often just as powerful, if not more powerful. And I thank her for that.”
The prime minister then recalled his time in Badenoch’s current job as Leader of the Opposition, describing it as “the most difficult job in politics”, and talked about the circumstances in which he took over the role from Jeremy Corbyn.
“We had just lost the 2019 election, which nearly broke my party. It was the worst result since 1935, and we were found to be institutionally antisemitic”, the prime minister told MPs.
“And, Mr Speaker, I picked up our party, I turned it round, I made a promise to rip antisemitism out of my party, and I did. I turned my party to face the country, and we won a landslide Labour general election.
“And after two years, we've stabilised the economy. We have invested heavily in our public services. We put better protections in for children, particularly on child poverty. We've strengthened our defence, and we've enhanced our international reputation.
"I'm proud to leave this country in a better shape than I found.”
Earlier this week, Starmer announced an increase of £250 million in funding for security for the Jewish Community, and confirmed that Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) would be banned under new legislation he introduced.
These announcements were raised again at the start of PMQs, after Watford MP Matt Turmaine brought to Starmer’s attention a “peace walk” in his constituency organised after an antisemitic attack on a shop and an attack on a mosque.
Starmer responded: An attack on one of us is an attack on all of us. Antisemitism and anti-Muslim hatred are a poison. We ripped antisemitism out of the Labour Party, and I've worked as prime minister to root it out of our country.
And that's why, just this week, Mr Speaker, we invested a record £250 million to protect our Jewish communities, and we are using the new powers we introduced to designate the IRGC, going after those who incite violence on our streets.”
The Labour leader concluded his final PMQs outing by saying: “Every prime minister knows when they take up the torch that the day will come when they have to pass it on. That day has come for me. This is the end of my political journey.
“In six years, went from historic defeat in 2019 to historic victory in 2024. And in two years in government, I leave the country in better shape than I found it. I am proud of everything that we have achieved.”
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