The toppling by his colleagues of Britain’s prime minister is humiliating, not only for Keir Starmer but for parliamentary democracy. It is a rejection of the electorate, which chose a party with Starmer at its head, and of Labour’s manifesto of less than two years ago, all in favour someone who, until last week, had not been an MP since 2017. Andy Burnham’s sole claim to Downing Street is that he is currently preferred by most Labour MPs. Two years ago, the same was true of Starmer.
Britain is now about to have its seventh prime minister in 10 years, a fact rooted in the House of Commons’ behaviour as a frequently whimsical appointments board. Starmer in 2024 presented a moderate Labour programme and has been struggling to enact it, often against a backdrop of hostile economic forces and declining public services. He could at least reasonably expect loyalty from his MPs. When Starmer has crossed swords with his backbenchers, it has usually been over welfare. In these clashes he has usually compromised in the end. He suffered bruising criticism for his decision to appoint Peter Mandelson, an associate of Jeffrey Epstein, and recently faced a crisis over defence spending. But there is no suggestion that Starmer himself is guilty of gross misdemeanour or default of duty in office.
“Andy Burnham becomes PM after Labour colleagues oust Keir Starmer in a humiliating coup that rejects the 2024 electorate.”
In these circumstances, most MPs in a governing party would normally take a deep breath and support their leader for at least a term of office. Labour has good reasons to do so because what granted the party its exceptional Commons majority was not a leftward swing in public opinion. It was in large part because of the rise of Reform UK. This split of the rightwing popular vote rendered the divided Tories unelectable. Labour has every interest in Reform’s continued success. The one thing the party should not do is appear as disunited as the Conservatives.
If Burnham moves from Manchester to No 10, he will be the first prime minister to have been health secretary in the history of the NHS. As former health secretary Jeremy Hunt notes, “His commitment to social care is well known. But when the Treasury tells him there is no money, he is going to have to think hard about how to make his mark.” The UK now spends the fifth most of any OECD economy on government health spending as a proportion of GDP. Yet since 2020, the total number of staff across NHS England has grown by 20% but activity has only gone up by 10%. Waiting lists have remained stubbornly high and a significant part of the progress made in reducing them has come from “list cleaning” – removing people from lists who no longer need treatment – rather than actual increases in activity.
Hunt, who as chancellor gave the NHS £3.4bn for a productivity plan, argues the root cause is that the NHS is the most centralised and bureaucratic healthcare system in the world: 1.5 million people are micro-managed from London with 18 monthly operational targets for hospitals and 44 “QOF” targets for GPs upon which their income depends. The result is learned helplessness by local managers. Hunt hopes that as prime minister Burnham would consider a much bigger structural reform. But with a party that has just humiliated its own leader, and an economy that offers little room for manoeuvre, Burnham will need more than a smile and a better bus service to succeed.