Keir Starmer paid an emotional tribute to the Queen as MPs united within the Commons to honour her reminiscence.

The Labour chief heralded Britain’s “best monarch” whose loss “robs this nation of its stillest level, its best consolation, at exactly the time we want these issues most”.

Buckingham Palace confirmed that Queen Elizabeth II died peacefully at Balmoral Fort on Thursday, aged 96 — bringing her 70-year reign to an finish.

The Home of Commons was full of MPs, all wearing black, who gathered to pay their very own tributes to the late monarch.

Starmer praised the Queen for her “whole dedication to service and obligation, her deep devotion to the nation, the Commonwealth, and the individuals she beloved”.

“In return for that, we beloved her,” he stated. “And it’s due to that nice, shared love that we grieve as we speak.

“She didn’t merely reign over us, she lived alongside us.”

Starmer recalled how the late monarch supplied consolation to many throughout the problem of the coronavirus pandemic, when restrictions stored households, buddies and family members aside.

On the time, she advised the nation: “We must always take consolation that whereas we could have extra nonetheless to endure, higher days will return: we might be with our buddies once more; we might be with our households once more; we’ll meet once more.”

“It wasn’t merely the message that allowed a shaken nation to attract upon these reserves, it was the very fact she was the messenger,” Starmer stated.

“Covid closed the entrance doorways of each residence within the nation, it made all our lives smaller and extra distant.

“However she was in a position to attain past that to reassure us and metal us.

“On the time we had been most alone, at a time we had been pushed aside, she held the nation shut, in a method nobody else might have finished. For that, we are saying: thanks.”

Starmer referenced the phrases of the late poet Philip Larkin on the Queen’s silver jubilee of 1977 for instance the grief many really feel at her passing on the stability her management represented.

Quoting the late poet, he stated: “In occasions when nothing stood, however worsened or grew unusual, there was one fixed good, she didn’t change.”

The Labour chief appealed for unity amid the political division as he referred to as on MPs to “pull collectively”.

“The late Queen would need us to redouble our efforts, to show our collar up and face the storm. To hold on,” he stated.

“This Home is a spot the place concepts and beliefs are debated. In fact, that results in passionate disagreement, after all, temperatures can run excessive.

“However all of us do it in pursuit of one thing better. We do it as a result of we consider we will make this nice nation and its individuals better nonetheless.

“At this second of uncertainty, the place our nation feels caught between a previous it can’t relive and a future but to be revealed, we should at all times keep in mind one of many nice classes of our Queen’s reign.

“That we’re at all times higher once we rise above the petty, the trivial, the day after day, to deal with the issues that basically matter. The issues that unite us, slightly than these which divide us.”

He added: “Our Elizabethan age could now be over however her legacy will stay on eternally.”

Liz Truss, who met the Queen solely days in the past after turning into prime minister, stated the late monarch had fulfilled her promise to “dedicate her life to service”.

“As we meet as we speak, we keep in mind the pledge she made on her twenty first birthday to dedicate her life to service,” she stated.

“The entire Home will agree, by no means has a promise been so utterly fulfilled.”

Truss revealed she had spoken to King Charles on Thursday night. Though he has already succeeded the throne, tomorrow he might be declared King by the Accession Council.

Britain has now entered a interval of nationwide mourning that may final for 10 days.