Newquay MP pays tribute to Sir Keir Starmer

Newquay and St Austell MP Noah Law has paid tribute to Sir Keir Starmer, saying he has "changed the country, and Cornwall, for the better" since the General Election two years ago.

Cornwall’s MPs – and the Liberal Democrat leader of Cornwall Council – have reacted to the news of Keir Starmer’s decision to stand down as Prime Minister today.

It may not come as a surprise that the Duchy’s four Labour MPs have been quick to shout about his achievements, with Perran Moon being the most vocal in his sadness that Labour colleagues conspired to “depose” Starmer.

Lib Dem MP Andrew George also believed the PM deserved better and believed “history will be kinder to him than they have been”, while the county’s other Lib Dem MP Ben Maguire is adamant that political infighting now needs to stop for the sake of the country.

Here are their view in alphabetical order.

Cllr Leigh Frost, Lib Dem leader of Cornwall Council

Sad to see another Prime Minister go, regardless of whether I agreed with everything they did or not. Seven prime ministers in a decade is not a good statistic, the country needs stability more than ever and the merry-go-round cannot continue.

The UK has a raft of major challenges that it needs to tackle and another period of limbo whilst waiting for the next Prime Minister does not help anyone, let alone Cornwall.

What I would say is that this is a change of leader, not a change of government. This government has made commitments to Cornwall and I fully expect it to stick to them and not betray the people of Cornwall, whoever the next Prime Minister is.

Andrew George, Liberal Democrat MP for St Ives and the Isles of Scilly

I’ve previously warned against the consequences of the feverish, rolling-news environment in which the upper tier of politics is managed. The shelf-life of Prime Ministers is speculated about like premiership football managers and begins as soon as they take office.

Though I don’t share his politics and have strongly disagreed with many of his and his Chancellor’s policy choices, I respect his integrity, believe he has generally called the international challenges right and handled his international duties with remarkable skill, including his careful child-minding of the UK’s relationship with the US President.

So, I believe he deserved to be treated better by his fellow parliamentarians and believe history will be kinder to him than they have been.

Whoever takes over will have to use their brief honeymoon well.

Jayne Kirkham, Labour MP for Truro and Falmouth

The Keir Starmer I know is a decent and honourable person who cares deeply about this country and the people in it.

In the first four of his six years running the Labour Party he stabilised and turned around our party, made it fit to govern and won an election. In the last two years he has stabilised and turned around the direction of the country.

He had a long list of achievements as Prime Minister in his resignation speech – from rebuilding the NHS, restoring our international reputation with authority and dignity, trade deals, making progress with immigration and significantly cutting the numbers of hotels and small boats for the first time after years of Tory chaos. Lifting half a million children out of poverty, free childcare, employment and renters’ rights. Nationalising rail and steel. Progress to fix water.

The benefits will be felt by ordinary people for years after he has gone.

He’s staying in post until a new leader can be chosen and I understand from his speech that will be by the end of the summer.

For my part, I will now be making sure that any potential new leader understands what Truro and Falmouth, and Cornwall more widely, needs from our Government. The people in this constituency will always be my absolute priority.

Noah Law, Labour MP for St Austell and Newquay

Sir Keir Starmer has led a life of public service. Over the past six years, he successfully changed our Labour Party – restoring trust in the economy, national security and our pride in our country. He has changed the country, and Cornwall, for the better since the General Election two years ago.

I believe history will look more kindly on our Prime Minister, whose careful stewardship ensured the first crucial steps towards rebuilding our fractured country and reversing years of decline. I want to thank him for his dedicated service.

For all the hope I have for what comes next, it is also with a heavy heart that I heard the Prime Minister speak today.

It would do us all well to reflect on the thirst for immediacy and the distaste for calm, collected, empiricism that has descended on our country’s politics.

But, as much as we, as politicians, should seek to define that reality, we also cannot defy political gravity, which is why change is needed.

Our party must now select a leader who can command that political reality – by speaking to people outside of Westminster and by restoring our public wealth and the wealth of working people.

Ben Maguire, Liberal Democrat MP for North Cornwall

After over a decade of complete Tory instability, we’re now very sadly getting more of the same from Labour, and as an MP it does genuinely frustrate me to see it first hand in Westminster – more infighting within the parties, rather than actually delivering for British people.

This marks the SEVENTH Prime Minister we’ve had in the last ten years. It’s complete madness – how can we expect any government to make solid progress? Or the markets to be able to have stability, and for this country’s economy to grow, if the head of the Government constantly changes?

What we need now is a bit of ambition, a bit of drive to get things going. It’s sad to say but Britain is very much stagnating – and from the chaos of the Tories and now Labour, it’s easy to see why.

Fixing social care now, rather than kicking it into the long grass, is essential if we want to rebuild our NHS. My constituents at this point are well and truly fed up, because our rural communities have been let down time and time again.

Meanwhile, I’m very proud to be getting on with priorities that matter most to them: like tackling our dire lack of NHS dentistry, the constant, scandalous dumping of sewage into our rivers and seas, fighting alongside my Lib Dem colleagues to deliver genuinely affordable housing for young families here in Cornwall and tackling the cost of living crisis, which has seen prices surge beyond belief these last few years.

Perran Moon, Labour MP for Camborne, Redruth and Hayle

The resignation of Keir Starmer is incredibly sad.

The Labour Party was on its knees, wracked by antisemitic racism, when he took over in 2019. Commentators universally proclaimed Labour would be “out of power for a generation”. Slowly, painstakingly, Keir turned the ashes of 2019 into a massive Labour landslide in 2024.

Since then, NHS waiting lists down, six cuts in interest rates, the fastest growing economy in the G7, wages for the lowest paid workers up, net migration over 80% down, asylum hotels closing but for me most importantly, 500,000 children being taken out of poverty, free breakfast clubs and free school meals for the poorest children.

For us in Cornwall, the Kernow Industrial Growth fund, the largest ever local government settlement for Cornwall Council, including for the first time extra adult social care funding recognising remote coastal additional service costs, the largest ever fund for roads and potholes, solar power on roofs and hospitals, Part 3 Cornish language status, the opening of the Camborne & Redruth diagnostic centre and South Crofty 28% nationalised and well on the way to the return of Cornish tin mining.

All this under Keir Starmer’s premiership. This is HIS legacy. And I for one am deeply grateful for what he has done for us and equally saddened that some of my colleagues have decided to depose him.

We have yet to receive a comment from Anna Gelderd, the Labour MP for South East Cornwall.