UK Labour Party’s Sir Keir Starmer Wanting Answers over How Britain’s Coronavirus Lockdown Will End

THE new Labour Party leader, Sir Keir Starmer, has told the BBC that he wants the British government to “be transparent” on how it plans to navigate the country out of the lockdown.

Starmer, who was elected as his party’s leader last Saturday, admitted that putting an exact timetable on when the UK restrictions would be lifted was not realistic.

He did though call on the government to tell people about their guiding principles over how they will exit the confinement period.

“The public “need these questions answered” and, by being transparent, the government was “much more likely to get their trust,” Sir Keir said.

He added: “That’s why I’m pushing them to publish and tell everybody what is the exit strategy, the principles, not the precise timing.”

Sir Keir also called for clarity as to who would be running things assuming that Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s recuperation from the coronavirus could take a number of weeks.

Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab is at the helm for a number of key committees, but Starmer wants more formality to what is going on.

He said: “We need to know how long the PM is going to be out of action and the government needs to put in place sensible arrangements, if it’s likely to be weeks, and it could be.

“We need robust replacement arrangements in place and we need to know what they are, as soon as possible.”

Newly-appointed shadow foreign secretary Lisa Nandy has called on Mr Raab to name a replacement to run the Foreign and Commonwealth Office while he is covering for Mr Johnson.