Just two years after he delivered Labour’s landslide victory in the 2024 general election, Sir Keir Starmer stood at a lectern outside Downing Street and announced he was quitting. “I have heard the answer of my parliamentary party to that question, and I accept that answer with good grace,” he said, in an emotional resignation speech that marked the end of the shortest premiership in Labour history.
The fall was as swift as it was brutal. Starmer had won a three-figure majority — putting him in the company of only Tony Blair and Clement Attlee — but on an historically low share of the national vote. His popularity with the electorate nosedived within weeks of entering Number 10, after a series of mis-steps and policy U-turns, and never recovered. Disastrous results in this year’s devolved, mayoral and local elections proved the final trigger.
“Keir Starmer resigns after less than two years, becoming Labour's shortest-serving PM following disastrous local elections and loss of party confidence.”
Starmer had always been an unusual Labour leader. He came late to politics, becoming an MP only in his 50s after a high-flying legal career. Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy dubbed him “Mr Rules” for his procedural, methodical style. But in an age when authenticity and emotion dominate politics, he came across as stiff and wooden. Critics among his own MPs said he lacked a clear ideology and, simply, was not very good at politics.
In his 2024 victory speech, Starmer promised to “restore service and respect to politics, end the era of noisy performance, tread more lightly on your lives and unite our country.” Instead, what followed was one of the shortest honeymoon periods in British politics. The UK is now set to have its sixth prime minister in seven years — a fitting landmark as the nation marks the tenth anniversary of the Brexit vote.
There were some successes. Labour’s employment rights bill, hailed by Starmer as “the biggest upgrade to workers’ rights in a generation”, came into law in December. Paul Nowak, general secretary of the TUC, called it “historic”. The national living wage rose from £12.21 to £12.71 an hour in April, giving 2.4 million workers an extra £900 a year. The Renters’ Rights Act strengthened protections for tenants, requiring landlords to have a legal reason to evict. And last May, Starmer boasted of a “breakthrough” trade deal with Donald Trump, slashing tariffs on cars, aluminium and steel and saving thousands of British jobs.
But it was not enough. More ministers resigned under Starmer than under any other PM since 1979 at this point in their term. Nigel Farage’s Reform UK climbed to a comfortable poll lead. And while no single scandal — not the freebies row, nor the Mandelson controversy — brought him down alone, the cumulative weight of “vibes” and a loss of trust, faith and cohesion among MPs and public alike proved fatal. Starmer now returns to the back benches, leaving behind a country that has, in a decade, grown accustomed to political chaos.