Remarks by Keir Starmer at VJ Day 80 Receptio

14 August 2025

Thank you so much, Veronica. 

I think that’s so powerful, isn’t it? Hearing the words and bringing back that bit of history for all of us, and that will be an shared experience for so many people. So, Veronica, thank you very much for doing that. And I know as we were coming around, you’re saying ‘I’m not sure why I’m doing this’, but you just demonstrated why you’re doing this. So, thank you very, very much. And your father would be very, very proud um to have seen and thought of you standing here in the garden of Downing Street sharing those moments. So thank you so much for…for doing that. Because through that and through the very many other acts: letters and memories, I think it makes that generation feel so close to us today and brings it alive and reminds us of just how important it is to preserve these precious memories, and we should preserve them and cherish them and read them and remember them and pass them on. 

Because I know so many people here in the garden and across the country will have their own memories of family and loved ones.  

And it is a real privilege for me to welcome you to Downing Street and into this garden.

This is the centre of government, this is where I work, it’s where I live, and it is a privilege to have you here – and right that you are here, because this is a government of service, and therefore it is a government at your service.

And so many of you have served and got family members who served, so it is really fitting that you’re here and its more than just a kind invitation for the afternoon.

It’s a reflection I hope of how important it is to us that we’re able to have you here.

So when I say it is a privilege, it really is my privilege to have you here. 

And I know that people have come from far and wide to be in the garden this afternoon to remember 80 years since our victory in World War II, and to take the opportunity, and it is the opportunity, to pay our respects to the many who fought who were captured and of course who made the ultimate sacrifice in the Far East.

And we do pay our respects here this afternoon as we do so often.

It’s a reminder that in the Cabinet Room – that’s the room just up here, those two or three windows and these doors, the doors to the Cabinet Room. That has been the Cabinet Room for decades and decades and decades. And it was in that room, in that Cabinet Room just a few yards from us that the new Prime Minister then, as it was, Clement Attlee, just been elected into office at the end of the Second World War received the news of Japan’s surrender.

And it was in there that that news was broken, and the nation began to understand that now it really was the end of World War II.

And as you can imagine, people took to the streets, we have spoken to many people who took to the streets on those days and that feeling that they had of freedom and peace at last. 

But I think alongside that feeling of joy and victory, relief of peace was really a shared determination, a shared moment across the nation, that victory also had to be a turning point for our country.

Not just for a world that was crying out for peace, but for a country that owed a huge debt to those people that had fought for a better future, those who had made huge sacrifices, so we have the freedoms and the life we enjoy today. 

And when we say we pay respects, that’s what we mean by that, because we are exercising those freedoms every day, because of what they did and the sacrifices that they made.

And that in a way is the lesson we carry with us today, it is the lesson that we must hold up every day.

Our duty is to honour that sacrifice with every new generation.  

And that’s what it means when we say we will ‘never forget’. Because it doesn’t just mean we will never forget a particular moment, the end, the final end, of World War II, but we must never forget what that gave us, what that gave our country, what that gave the world in terms of the freedoms and the values that we fight for. And of course, those values are still contested here.

I sat on this terrace this very morning with President Zelenskyy, who is fighting for the same values as we were fighting for.

And so when we say ‘never forget’, we must pass the stories of those who have gone before us – Those incredible stories, Veronica, like the stories that you just shared with us and the stories that many others have shared. 

I’ve seen some of the extracts from the letters that were sent, which were extraordinary, exquisite memories and experiences and vignettes into life as it was then.

Stories of camaraderie, of courage, real courage – from fighting in jungles and blistering heat to the immense suffering of prisoners of war on the Burma railway and elsewhere – and it was immense suffering as many of you will know.

But we also remind ourselves of what that was fighting for.

A peace that is precious, that is fragile, as I say, that we can see on our own continent today. 

And the possibility of a better future for the next generation.  

And that is what the Attlee government took as its mission: Creating an NHS, building homes fit for heroes, the welfare state. They were all good, important things for a government to do. But they were done with a sense of mission that we had to repay the debt that we owed to those who had made such a contribution in the Second World War.

By building a new Britain that reflected the dignity of its people.   

And that is what my government is determined to do today. 

And that’s why I stood outside Downing Street the day after the election last year and said, ‘we will be a government of service’ – that same sense that we are here to serve the country, to create a better country.

A part of that, of course, is working with our allies to secure peace abroad. 

It is a continual project; it’s not a project that ended 80 years ago by any stretch of the imagination.

To rebuild Britain once more so it’s a country we can be proud of, that is capable of playing its full part on the world stage to deescalate tensions and bring about just and lasting peace in areas including in our own continent.

A country worthy of the soldiers that marched under our flag and showed the world that Britain is – and will always be a beacon of peace and hope in a dangerous world. 

So thank you all – for your service.  

Thank you for being here.

Thank you for sharing your experiences and keeping that story alive.

And I really hope you have a wonderful afternoon.

Thank you so much for being here. Thank you very much indeed. Thank you.