Inside the UK election result: Will it have any impact on your OE? - The Front Page

Labour Party leader Sir Keir Starmer is set to be the new Prime Minister of the UK.

Sir Keir Starmer is set to be the United Kingdom’s next Prime Minister – but what his vision is for Britain remains to be seen.

An exit poll for TV outlets BBC, ITV and Sky suggests Starmer’s Labour Party will receive 410 seats for a landslide victory, pushing the Conservative Party out of office after 14 years in power.

While it marks the end of a period of UK politics dominated by austerity measures, public service cuts and the Brexit vote to leave the European Union, it’s unclear how radically Starmer will change course.

New Zealand expat and former political journalist Henry Cooke told The Front Page that there is a generally dour mood across the UK.

”I think that’s what I find different about the UK versus at least New Zealand when I left ... there is kind of a widely held sense that the best days are behind them and things are getting worse.”

Labour’s election manifesto had 121 pages but wasn’t particularly detailed, he said.

“There are clear signposts, things like adding the equivalent of GST to private school fees to fund more teachers, big planning reform, kind of like what [New Zealand Housing Minister Chris Bishop] mentioned to unlock housing and other investment in the UK.

“But it is not a radical shift of vision. They’ve stuck to the kind of Tory fiscal envelope on overall spending. It’s definitely a Labour colour of that – I think it’s pretty easy to expect that there’ll be generally more spending on health, generally more spending on education, perhaps less spending on defence, but there will overall not be a kind of seismic shift.”

With that in mind, any Kiwis planning on heading to the UK for their OE should not expect much difference.

“Unless maybe you were someone who wanted to work in a government job – it’s only going to be higher public sector employment. Other than that, I’d say the reasons to move to the UK ... there’s so many bits of Europe to visit, that’s not going to change.

“If Starmer does what he wants to do and really raises wages, that will be a big change there [and] money will be much better in the UK. But for the immediate future, your reasons to move to the UK are about as good now as it was two weeks ago.”

Listen to the full episode for more on what the Labour win means for the UK, and the similarities between the UK and NZ.

The Front Page is a daily news podcast from the New Zealand Herald, available to listen to every weekday from 5am. The podcast is presented by Chelsea Daniels, an Auckland-based journalist with a background in world news and crime/justice reporting who joined NZME in 2016.

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