With King’s Speech, new U.K. Labour government defines ‘change’

The new government seeks to put wealth creation at the heart of its policymaking, to “turbocharge” growth, as Starmer puts it. Britain is the sixth largest economy in the world, but has been plagued by low productivity and stagnant wages.

The State Opening of Parliament on Wednesday is all about the pomp, when the tradition and theatrics of the constitutional monarchy are on full display, designed to awe the public and bestow legitimacy during transitions of power.

The British monarch will arrive in a carriage, enter Westminster through a special door and proceed to a gold throne, where he will deliver a speech in a neutral tone.

And this is quite a dramatic transition. A relatively new monarch will be reading out the plans of a new government, while Conservative Party lawmakers sit on the opposition benches, former prime minister Rishi Sunak among them.

Starmer and his cabinet picks officially started on July 5, after a landslide win in the general election. Already, Starmer has represented Britain at NATO and shaken hands with President Biden in the Oval Office. But Wednesday is when his government will lay out its legislative priorities, set expectations and define the “change” at the heart of Labour’s election campaign.

There is really little to hold Labour back in its mission to rebuild Britain — except the country’s coffers. As incoming Finance Minister Rachel Reeves put it, this government inherited “the worst set of circumstances since the Second World War.”

An outline of Wednesday’s speech, given early to reporters, suggests Starmer’s government will introduce 35 bills during the parliamentary session. Sunak’s government mentioned 21 last time.

“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.

Center-left Labour wants to nationalize the train service and create a public-owned green energy utility. It wants to boost the economy by encouraging the construction of homes and infrastructure.

“Now is the time to take the brakes off Britain,” Starmer said in a statement released before the speech. “For too long people have been held back, their paths determined by where they came from — not their talents and hard work.”

Starmer is the most working-class leader of Britain in a generation. As everyone who listened to his stump speeches knows, his mother was a nurse and his father was a toolmaker. Starmer was the first in the family to attend a university. He went on to become a human rights lawyer, and was knighted for his service as the Britain’s chief prosecutor, before entering politics at age 52.

Starmer has talked about restoring politics as “public service.” That may resonate with King Charles III, who has framed his own job as being in service to the people.

The King’s Speech is written entirely by the government. The king is just the messenger. Although head of state, he has little real power beyond his ceremonial roles. And he is expected to remain nonpartisan.

But Charles is known as a fierce 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 for awarding oil and gas licenses.

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.

There are other signs of change. Labour has appropriated “take back control” — a motto for Brexiteers — as a slogan for reducing the “chaos” of Conservative Party leadership, as well as for a plan to decentralize power, away from Westminster.

Wednesday will be one of the most high-visibility days for Charles since he revealed in February that he was beginning treatment for cancer. (What kind of cancer and what kind of treatment we have not been told.)

After he emerges from the “robing room,” expect the king to be wearing the Imperial State Crown, set with nearly 3,000 diamonds. Some officials, such as the speaker of the House of Commons, will be wearing breeches, tights and lacy neckwear with their ceremonial robes. Lords and baronesses from the overstuffed House of Lords will be wrapped in scarlet robes with ermine collars.

There are many oddities to the day’s ceremony. Before the king’s arrival, royal bodyguards search 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.

Black Rod, a senior official in the House of Lords, will have the door to the House of Commons slammed in her face — representing the House of Commons’ independence from the monarch.

Another lawmaker is held “hostage” at Buckingham Palace during the ceremony, which is meant to guarantee the monarch’s safe return.