On Saturday 4th April, Keir Starmer was elected Leader of the Labour Party and Angela Rayner was elected as Deputy Leader of the Labour Party. Keir won the election on the first round with 56.2% of all votes cast and – after transfers – Angela Rayner was elected with 52.6% of the vote. You can read the full breakdown of results on the Labour Party website.

Keir and Angela have both been great friends to the South East and between them have visited Portsmouth, Dover, Milton Keynes, Reading, Crawley and Southampton (to name a few places) in the last couple of years. We look forward to welcoming them back to the region again in their new roles when it is safe to do so.

You can watch Keir Starmer’s acceptance speech at the bottom of this article.

Cllr Vince Maple, South East Regional Board Chair said:

“Congratulations Keir Starmer & Angela Rayner and commiserations to the unsuccessful candidates. As Medway Labour Group Leader I look forward to working with you both to deliver a Labour Council and Labour Government as well as doing all we can to tackle the CoVid19 Crisis.

“As Labour South East Regional Board Chair it will be essential to see our region with the resources it needs as we can only deliver a Labour Prime Minister & Government if we are winning seats in the South East.”