Keir Starmer fought back tears as he stood outside No 10 on Monday morning and announced he would resign as prime minister and Labour leader, admitting he had heard the answer of his parliamentary party to the question of whether he was best placed to lead them into the next general election.
“I have heard the answer of my parliamentary party to that question and I accept that answer with good grace,” Starmer said, his voice breaking. He said he had spoken to the King earlier that morning to tell him of his decision, and would remain in post until a successor is chosen. Nominations for the leadership contest will open on 9 July, with a new leader and prime minister expected by the end of parliament’s summer recess in early September. If the leadership election is uncontested and Andy Burnham is the only candidate, he could become prime minister as soon as next month.
“Keir Starmer resigns as PM and Labour leader after losing party confidence; Andy Burnham tipped as successor.”
Starmer’s departure was triggered by Labour’s disastrous results in the May elections and Andy Burnham’s victory in the Makerfield by-election, after which multiple cabinet ministers told the prime minister over the weekend that his position was no longer tenable. Burnham was sworn in as an MP on Monday, just hours after Starmer’s resignation speech, to whoops and cheers from supporters and heckling from opposition benches. One Tory MP shouted “Rome is saved!”, while another offered a Monty Python-inspired response: “He’s not the messiah.”
But there are already warnings that Burnham may be repeating Starmer’s biggest mistake. Helen MacNamara, the former deputy cabinet secretary, said the Labour leadership hopeful’s team needed to demonstrate the “urgency and ruthlessness” required to make the transition into government. “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?”
MacNamara’s co-host on The Independent’s political podcast In The Room, former No 10 special adviser Cleo Watson, raised similar concerns. She cited reports that former transport secretary Louise Haigh had been asking MPs which jobs they would like in a Burnham-led government – “basically, the opposite of what you should be doing,” MacNamara said. Watson described 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?”
The markets have reacted in a muted manner to Starmer’s departure, according to Channel 4 News economics editor Helia Ebrahimi. But the question of what a Burnham economic policy would look like remains open.
In his resignation speech, Starmer highlighted his achievements, saying he had rescued the Labour Party from financial, moral and electoral peril and put Britain on a stronger footing economically and internationally. He said becoming prime minister had been “the proudest moment of my life”. He will now ask Labour’s ruling National Executive Committee to draw up the terms of a leadership contest, and promised “full support” to his successor. “I will do everything I can to ensure an orderly handover of power,” he said.
Britain is now due to get its seventh prime minister in ten years.