On course for power, U.K.’s Opposition Labour prepares for a quick change

If Labour defeats the governing Conservatives at this year’s nationwide vote, its leader Keir Starmer will replace Rishi Sunak within hours

If the main Opposition Labour party wins the next U.K. general election as opinion polls indicate, then a familiar sight will appear outside the Prime Minister’s official residence the next day: removal vans.

The overnight transition, unique in major Western democracies, contrasts with the roughly two months’ preparation for an incoming U.S. administration and around 10 days for a new French President.

But if Labour defeats the governing Conservatives by a majority at this year’s nationwide vote, its leader Keir Starmer will replace Rishi Sunak inside 10 Downing Street within hours.

The U.K.’s politically neutral 5,00,000-strong civil service, satirised in the hit 1980s British sitcom “Yes Minister”, will immediately find itself working for new government ministers with new priorities.

Key to the quick changeover are so-called “access talks” between the Opposition party and senior civil servants, which occur in the run-up to an election.

Tory leader Sunak recently gave Labour permission to commence these discussions with mandarins in Whitehall — the catch-all term for the civil service — and they are due to start imminently.

“They’re important because they’re the only opportunity before the election for Opposition politicians to privately share their thinking and their ideas with the civil service government machine,” former civil servant Alex Thomas said.