British Cypriot MP Nesil Caliskan expressed gratitude for outgoing Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer, who is set to resign on Monday and be replaced by former Manchester mayor Andy Burnham.

Monday’s handover, she said, will “mark the next chapter, with a new Labour prime minister working tirelessly to deliver for the people of our country”. Caliskan, Starmer, and Burnham all belong to the United Kingdom’s ruling Labour Party.

She said that Starmer will leave his post as prime minister “having made the country better than it was two years ago”.

“When Keir became leader of the Labour Party, I watched the news while isolating during Covid, carrying out my duties as leader of a council in the most extraordinary of circumstances. I remember turning to my husband and saying, ‘I feel hopeful’,” she said.

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She added that “what followed under Keir’s leadership meant that, for the first time in many years, I felt proud to be a Labour member – the political party I first joined at the age of 14”.

Then, she charted her own career path in recent years, citing her election to the party’s national executive committee and then as an MP, before being appointed last month as the parliamentary undersecretary of state for devolution, faith, and communities, adding, “I am so proud to be able to say, ‘I was part of it’, in a small way”.

“Most of all, I am grateful to Keir for his leadership, which saved the Labour Party and got us into power so that those who desperately needed a Labour government have benefited, and will continue to benefit,” she said.

Burnham became leader of the Labour Party on Friday, having won the support of the vast majority of the party’s 403 MPs. Starmer will visit King Charles III later on Monday to formally resign and recommend that Burnham be appointed, with Charles then set to follow that advice and appoint Burnham as prime minister.

Upon becoming party leader, Burnham, too, offered his predecessor praise, saying that “under Starmer’s leadership, we went from our worst defeat to one of the best victories in our history”, and that “Keir put Labour back in a position to change people’s lives, and that is what we have been doing these last two years”.

However, he also promised to “build a new politics”.

“The country is crying out for it. We might enjoy the point scoring against others. The public don’t. How can politicians point fingers when living standards are falling and politics as a whole, isn’t working for them? It infuriates them and makes them switch off,” he said.

He went on to say that the UK “took a series of wrong turns in the 1980s” when conservative Margaret Thatcher was prime minister, lamenting that “political power was centralised and economic power was privatised”.

“The country surrendered control of the essentials: housing, water, energy, transport, and left people exposed to higher costs, that in turn led to the concentration of more wealth and power in the hands of fewer people and fewer places,” he said.

He then said that his own government will bring about “the most significant change moment in our politics for 40 years” and “take us to a country where life is more affordable, and all people and places are lifted from where they are now”.