Sir Keir Starmer has announced his resignation as prime minister and Labour leader, ending a premiership fatally wounded by his own Defence Investment Plan. The DIP, which defence secretary John Healey described as an insultingly small financial offer for his department, prompted Healey to resign a fortnight ago — a decision that ultimately doomed Starmer. "It was the trigger which finally doomed Starmer's premiership," the i Paper's Mark Wallace wrote.
Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar, the first major party figure to call for Starmer to quit in February, said he was "proud" of their work together despite "missteps". "I will always be proud that together we got rid of the Tories after 14 years of misrule, that a Labour government helped end austerity, lifted half a million children out of poverty and secured shipbuilding on the Clyde for a generation," Sarwar told BBC Scotland News. "That's something that no-one can take away from Keir Starmer, that's a legacy he can be proud of."
“Keir Starmer resigns after Defence Investment Plan triggers Healey's exit; Andy Burnham leads race to succeed him.”
Sarwar refused to back any potential leadership candidate, saying he would wait to see their proposals. But newly elected MP Andy Burnham, who won the Makerfield by-election, is in pole position to succeed Starmer. Burnham confirmed he will run for leader and prime minister. Cabinet ministers had rallied around Starmer when Sarwar first urged him to quit, but the subsequent Holyrood election result was poor for Scottish Labour.
Starmer will remain in office until Labour chooses a new leader, which he said would happen by the time parliament returns from recess in September — or sooner if the party gets behind one candidate without a contest. The DIP, which Starmer himself in a foreword to last year's Strategic Defence Review called "the hollowing out of our Armed Forces", had been a sticking point. Healey's resignation over the paltry financial settlement for defence was, according to Wallace, "a gift to the nation" because it exposed decades of underfunding that left troops in Iraq and Afghanistan with inadequate vehicles and equipment.
Sarwar urged the party to "move very quickly to focusing on the issues they were elected to do — and that's delivering for the great people of this country". But the question of whether Scottish Labour would have fared better if Starmer had stepped down earlier remains unresolved.