Andy Burnham becomes Britain's new prime minister

Andy Burnham has become Britain's seventh prime minister in a decade.

Some of the government's top ministers say they will be out of the new cabinet. Rachel Reeves has announced her departure as chancellor in a social media post.

Former Mayor of Manchester Andy Burnham has become Britian's new Prime Minister after formally accepting an invitation from King Charles III to form a government.

Buckingham Palace has released a photo of the two men shaking hands. The ceremony known as "kissing hands" marks the transfer of power from former leader Keir Starmer to Burnham.

Before entering for 10 Downing Street for the first time as Prime Minister, Burnham gave a speech saying politicians had failed to bring the stability needed to raise living standards, something he said he would change.

Burnham says: "We will make this moment a circuit breaker for Britain, bringing forward the biggest changes in the last 40 years, a new political model and a new economic model. In the 1980s, Britain took some wrong turns. Political power was centralized, economic power privatised, large parts of the country de-industrialised, and they still haven't recovered. Many feel as though they're still in decline, and they don't have the ability to turn things around."

He continues, "And that is why we will change politics, to make it more collaborative, more about problem solving than point scoring. And we will take power out of here and carry it into every postcode in the land so that they can do more."

Labour lawmakers see Burnham as one of the few politicians capable of tackling the threat from veteran Brexit campaigner Nigel Farage's populist Reform UK, something they doubted the unpopular Starmer could do.

One of the biggest challenges facing Britain's new prime minister is finding a way to kickstart the UK's sluggish economy so that growing companies and increased output boost government revenue without raising taxes. It's a problem that has bedeviled every prime minister since the financial crisis of 2008. And their failure to solve it is part of the reason that Burnham is the UK's eighth prime minister in the past 16 years.

The British economy has grown an average of less than 1.5% annually since 2009, compared with an annual average of 3% in the 15 years before the financial crisis.

While devising his economic plan, Burnham will be constrained by promises to reduce government debt, which now equals more than 95% of gross domestic product, the highest since the early 1960s, while not raising taxes on working people.

He must also tackle widespread frustration from the British public with mass migration.