Keir Starmer: “I had a meeting with him to tell him that in this country we will stand with him and Ukraine, and I didn’t let him leave…”

It has been a huge honour and privilege to represent the best constituency in the country and to have taken over from Frank Dobson, who was such a great constituency MP and a member of the last Labour government.

In six and a half years, I took our party from a historic defeat in 2019, changed it so it was fit to face the country and won a landslide general election victory in 2024.

Since then, it has been the privilege of my life to serve you and this great country as Prime Minister, and I am confident that Britain is now stronger and fairer than it was two years ago.

I think once you’ve been prime minister, it’s important to answer the question: what are you going to do next? Having decided I’m going to concentrate on international affairs, I think it’s right to step down.