LONDON, July 17. /TASS/. Andy Burnham has been declared the new leader of the United Kingdom’s Labour Party, Shabana Mahmood, chair of the party’s National Executive Committee, announced at a special conference broadcast live by Sky News.

Since Labour is the ruling party, Burnham, 56, will assume the post of prime minister after Keir Starmer steps down. The transition is due to take place on July 20.

The nomination period for leadership contenders closed on July 15, with Burnham, the former mayor of Greater Manchester, emerging as the only candidate on the ballot. As many as 369 out of 403 Labour MPs backed his candidacy, as well as all affiliated trade unions.

Parliament member Catherine West was also nominated to lead the Labour Party by fellow MP Neil Coil. West has been among the strongest critics of outgoing Prime Minister Keir Starmer in recent months.

"One candidate received 379 nominations. Having met the threshold of 20% of the parliamentary Labour Party, they were eligible to proceed to the next stage. One other candidate received one nomination and is not eligible to proceed. Among the affiliated trade unions and socialist societies, the one eligible candidate received 23 nominations in total. This included nominations from all 11 trade unions," Mahmood said. "There being no other eligible nominated candidate, it is therefore my honor to declare that the duly elected leader of the Labour Party is Andy Burnham," she added, prompting applause from the audience.