Sir Keir Starmer bowed to pressure from his own MPs this morning and announced he would step down as Labour leader, just two years into the job – triggering a political chain reaction that could see Andy Burnham become the UK’s next prime minister within weeks.
As the news broke, Burnham raced down to London on a delayed Avanti West Coast train to assume the newly opened role of de facto prime minister. With Wes Steeting backing the self-styled King of the North rather than challenging for the leadership himself, a “coronation” looked inevitable – the keys to No 10 handed from Starmer to Burnham without a contest, let alone an election.
“Andy Burnham set to become UK's next unelected prime minister after Starmer quits, sparking calls for election.”
The public did not vote for Burnham, and they made their feelings clear. “I think we are looking at the end of democracy,” said Judy in Bracknell on BBC 5Live. Radio phone-ins were full of outrage and confusion; social media was awash with horror at the prospect of yet another unelected prime minister. A tweet from Angela Rayner in October 2022 resurfaced, in which she said of Rishi Sunak: “The Tories have crowned Rishi Sunak without him saying a word about what he would do as PM. He has no mandate, no answers and no ideas. Nobody voted for this. The public deserve their say on Britain’s future through a General Election. It’s time for a fresh start with Labour.”
Polls on the Sun and Express websites asked: “Should there be an election?” The view of readers was not complicated – 92.7 per cent on the Sun and 97 per cent on the Express backed yes. Deltapoll’s Joe Twyman, who crunched numbers from mid-May, found that 63 per cent of Brits thought Burnham should go to the country in a general election if he became prime minister, including 56 per cent of Labour voters. “I would imagine that public opinion would be broadly the same on those occasions whenever a similar situation has occurred in the recent past, regardless of whether it was a Conservative or Labour government,” he said.
But the British system of parliamentary democracy resolutely does not give them one. Rayner was wrong on at least one point: Sunak did have a mandate – from Tory MPs. The prime minister is appointed by the monarch on the basis of who can command a majority in parliament, not on whether anyone actually likes them. People bemoaning that Burnham looks poised to take office without a public vote are discovering a hard truth: the rules don't require one.