Sir Keir Starmer has announced his resignation as Labour leader, heralding the end of his time in 10 Downing Street after a devastating set of election results and a series of damaging revelations over his decision to appoint Peter Mandelson as US ambassador last year. He said he will remain prime minister until his successor is chosen.
Pressure had been building for months, with dire poll ratings and a disastrous showing in May’s elections to the Welsh and Scottish parliaments and local councils in England. The results prompted Health Secretary Wes Streeting to resign, along with a clutch of more junior ministers. An ally of Andy Burnham quit as MP for Makerfield, clearing a path for the then Greater Manchester mayor to return to Westminster. Starmer had previously blocked Burnham from standing in a February by-election, but after scores of MPs demanded his resignation, he lacked the authority to repeat the move. His standing ebbed further when a row over defence spending prompted Labour stalwart John Healey to resign as defence secretary earlier this month. Burnham’s decisive victory in Makerfield last week, where he increased Labour’s majority over Reform UK, strengthened his appeal to many MPs.
“Keir Starmer resigns as Labour leader after devastating election results; Andy Burnham faces warnings over lack of governing preparation.”
Starmer initially insisted he would contest a leadership challenge, despite several cabinet ministers privately urging him to quit. But after mulling it over this weekend, he concluded he did not have enough support among Labour MPs to make such a move viable. In his resignation speech, he said contenders would have between 9 and 16 July to garner the necessary support: 81 Labour MPs and either 32 of the party’s 634 local branches or three affiliated organisations including two trade unions. If more than one candidate clears that threshold, a vote among party members and affiliated trade union supporters will pick a winner before Parliament returns from its summer recess on 1 September.
Burnham has confirmed he will stand, and was sworn in as an MP on Monday, hours after Starmer’s resignation speech. His arrival was met with whoops and cheers from supporters, as well as heckling from the opposition benches. One Tory MP shouted “Rome is saved!”, while another offered a Monty Python-inspired response: “He’s not the messiah.”
But a former senior Whitehall official has warned Burnham risks entering Downing Street without the urgency, preparation or clear plan needed to govern. Helen MacNamara, the former deputy cabinet secretary, said his team need to demonstrate the “urgency and ruthlessness” required to make the transition into government. Speaking on The Independent’s political podcast In The Room, she said Burnham’s camp needed to have “a clear template in their heads of what good governing looks like” for the UK and not just Manchester or Makerfield. “I don’t know whether this is just how our political class is now, or whether it’s a Labour Party problem, but they feel extremely intellectually incurious about the business of governing,” she said.
Her co-host, former No 10 special adviser Cleo Watson, raised similar concerns, citing reports that former transport secretary Louise Haigh had been asking MPs which jobs they would like in a Burnham-led government. Watson said: “When you talk to people about these jobs, what you want to be able to say is, ‘These are the five priorities I want to happen with housing. That’s what I want you to deliver. Are you comfortable with that?’” Instead, she said she had heard of more informal conversations in which MPs put forward their own ideas, with Burnham’s team responding: “Yeah, cool, man. That sounds good. Note that down, somebody.” Watson said: “I just think: oh, no. Are we about to sleepwalk or sleeprun into a similar situation that we’ve just had?”
MacNamara said her wider concern was the apparent lack of urgency. “The pace is miles off,” she said. “When you’re working right at the heart of power, you haven’t got time to be wondering and thinking. Where is the pace, and the urgency, and the ruthlessness about the planning and delivery? That’s the thing that bothers me.”
The SNP has also urged Burnham to give “straight answers” on his Downing Street plans, as the leading candidate to replace Starmer faces scrutiny over his readiness to govern. Meanwhile, Starmer leaves office with his popularity at historic lows: according to polling cited by the New Statesman, only 15 per cent of voters think he can speak for the nation, and at day 670 of his premiership he stands as the least liked of all recent premiers to have made it that far.