Good afternoon.
I have just been to see Her Majesty the Queen,
who has invited me to form a government and I have accepted.
I pay tribute to the fortitude and patience of my predecessor
and her deep sense of public service but in spite of all her efforts,
it has become clear that there are pessimists
at home and abroad who think that after three years of indecision
that this country has become a prisoner to the old arguments
of 2016 and that in this home of democracy we are incapable
of honouring a basic democratic mandate.
And so I am standing before you today to tell you, the British people,
that those critics are wrong.
The doubters, the doomsters, the gloomsters, they are going
to get it wrong again.
The people who bet against Britain are going to lose their shirts
because we are going to restore trust in our democracy.
And we are going to fulfil the repeated promises
of parliament to the people and come out of the EU on October 31,
no ifs or buts.
And we will do a new deal, a better deal
that will maximise the opportunities of Brexit while allowing us
to develop a new and exciting partnership with the rest of Europe
based on free trade and mutual support.
I have every confidence that in 99 days’ time,
we will have cracked it.
But you know what, we aren’t going to wait 99 days
because the British people have had enough of waiting.
The time has come to act, to take decisions
to give strong leadership and to change this country for the better.
And though the Queen has just honoured me with this
extraordinary office of state my job is to serve you, the people,
because if there is one point we politicians need to remember,
it is that the people are our bosses.
My job is to make your streets safer and we are going to begin
with another 20,000 police on the streets and we start recruiting forthwith.
My job is to make sure you don’t have to wait 3 weeks to see your GP
and we start work this week with 20 new hospital upgrades,
and ensuring that money for the NHS really does get to the frontline.
My job is to protect you or your parents or grandparents
from the fear of having to sell your home to pay for the costs of care.
And so I am announcing now, on the steps of Downing Street,
that we will fix the crisis in social care once and for all
with a clear plan we have prepared to give every older person the dignity
and security they deserve.
My job is to make sure your kids get a superb education
wherever they are in the country and that’s why we have already
announced that we are going to level up per pupil funding
in primary and secondary schools.
And that is the work that begins immediately behind that black door.
And though I am today building a great team of men and women,
I will take personal responsibility for the change I want to see.
Never mind the backstop, the buck stops here.
And I will tell you something else about my job.
It is to be prime minister of the whole United Kingdom
and that means uniting our country, answering at last the plea
of the forgotten people and the left behind towns
by physically and literally renewing the ties that bind us together
so that with safer streets and better education
and fantastic new road and rail infrastructure and full fibre broadband,
we level up across Britain with higher wages,
and a higher living wage, and higher productivity.
We close the opportunity gap giving millions of young people
the chance to own their own homes and giving business the confidence
to invest across the UK.
Because it is time we unleashed the productive power,
not just of London and the south east but of every corner of England, Scotland,
Wales and Northern Ireland. The awesome foursome
that are incarnated in that red, white and blue flag.
Who together are so much more than the sum of their parts
and whose brand and political personality is admired
and even loved around the world for our inventiveness,
for our humour, for our universities, our scientists, our armed forces,
our diplomacy, for the equalities on which we insist,
whether race or gender or LGBT or the right of every girl
in the world to 12 years of quality education
and for the values we stand for around the world.
Everyone knows the values that flag represents.
It stands for freedom and free speech and habeas corpus
and the rule of law.
And above all it stands for democracy and that is why we will come out
of the EU on October 31 because in the end,
Brexit was a fundamental decision by the British people
that they wanted their laws made by people that they can elect
and they can remove from office.
And we must now respect that decision and create a new partnership
with our European friends, as warm, as close
and as affectionate as possible. And the first step is
to repeat unequivocally our guarantee to the 3.2 million EU nationals
now living and working among us.
And I say directly to you, thank you for your contribution to our society.
Thank you for your patience and I can assure you that under
this government you will get the absolute certainty of the right
to live and remain.
And next I say to our friends in Ireland, and in Brussels
and around the EU, I am convinced that we can do a deal
without checks at the Irish border because we refuse,
under any circumstances to have such checks and yet without
that anti-democratic backstop.
And it is of course vital at the same time
that we prepare for the remote possibility
that Brussels refuses any further to negotiate and we are forced
to come out with no deal, not because we want that outcome.
Of course not but because it is only common sense to prepare.
And let me stress that there is a vital sense
in which those preparations cannot be wasted
and that is because under any circumstances
we will need to get ready at some point in the near future
to come out of the EU customs union and out of regulatory control,
fully determined at last to take advantage of Brexit.
Because that is the course on which this country is now set
with high hearts and growing confidence we will now accelerate
the work of getting ready.
And the ports will be ready, and the banks will be ready,
and the factories will be ready, and business will be ready,
and the hospitals will be ready, and our amazing food
and farming sector will be ready and waiting to continue selling
ever more not just here but around the world.
And don’t forget that in the event of a no deal outcome
we will have the extra lubrication of the £39 billion.
And whatever deal we do we will prepare this autumn for an economic package
to boost British business and to lengthen this country’s lead as the number one
destination in this continent for overseas investment.
And to all those who continue to prophesy disaster
I say: "Yes, there will be difficulties."
Though I believe that with energy and application they will be far less
serious than some have claimed but if there is one thing that has
really sapped the confidence of business over the last three years
it is not the decisions we have taken, it is our refusal to take decisions.
And to all those who say we cannot be ready,
I say do not underestimate this country.
Do not underestimate our powers of organisation and our determination
because we know the enormous strengths of this economy
in life sciences, in tech, in academia, in music, the arts, culture, financial services.
It is here in Britain that we are using gene therapy,
for the first time, to treat the most common form of blindness.
Here in Britain that we are leading the world in the battery technology
that will help cut CO2 and tackle climate change
and produce green jobs for the next generation.
And as we prepare for a post-Brexit future it is time we looked
not at the risks but at the opportunities that are upon us.
So let us begin work now to create freeports
that will drive growth and thousands of high-skilled jobs in left behind areas.
Let’s start now to liberate the UK’s extraordinary bioscience sector
from anti-genetic modification rules and let’s develop the blight-resistant
crops that will feed the world.
Let’s get going now on our own position navigation
and timing satellite and earth observation systems –
UK assets orbiting in space with all the long term strategic
and commercial benefits for this country.
Let’s change the tax rules to provide extra incentives
to invest in capital and research.
And let’s promote the welfare of animals that has always
been so close to the hearts of the British people.
And yes, let’s start now on those free trade deals
because it is free trade that has done more than anything else
to lift billions out of poverty.
All this and more we can do now and only now, at this extraordinary
moment in our history.
And after three years of unfounded self-doubt it is time to change the record,
to recover our natural and historic role as an enterprising, outward-looking
and truly global Britain, generous in temper and engaged with the world.
No one in the last few centuries has succeeded in betting
against the pluck and nerve and ambition of this country.
They will not succeed today.
We in this government will work flat out
to give this country the leadership it deserves
and that work begins now.
Thank you very much.