Sir Keir Starmer announced Monday he would resign as UK Prime Minister, paving the way for newly elected MP Andy Burnham to succeed him.
Starmer, 63, set out a timetable to stand down after coming under mounting pressure following last month’s local elections, where the governing Labour Party lost more than 1,000 seats.
“I have heard the answer of my parliamentary party to that question, and I accept that answer with good grace,” Starmer said outside 10 Downing Street in London.
Every decision I’ve taken has been about putting the country I love first. That is why I will resign as leader of the Labour Party. I have spoken to His Majesty the King this morning to inform him of my decision.”
Starmer spent the past weekend at the Prime Minister’s country retreat of Chequers, considering his future in light of Burnham’s storming win in last week’s Makerfield by-election.
He had previously vowed to fight any leadership election in the wake of Burnham’s victory before realizing the game was up, according to a senior Labour figure.
“What he rightly wants to avoid is humiliation, but the worst humiliation for Keir personally would be if he stands in a leadership election and is heavily beaten,” they told Reuters.
Labour suffered devastating losses across England’s post-industrial heartlands, where they were routed by Nigel Farage’s insurgent Reform UK Party.
Labour also lost more than 450 seats in London alone — with the left-wing Green Party making gains in what were Labour strongholds.
Labour was also swamped in Scotland and Wales, losing control of the latter’s devolved parliament — the Senedd — for the first time since its creation in 1999.
Starmer suffered a wave of resignations in the wake of the local elections drubbing.
Health Secretary Wes Streeting resigned after admitting he had lost confidence in Starmer’s leadership — and blasted the Prime Minister for a lack of vision.
“But where we need vision, we have a vacuum. Where we need direction, we have drift,” he wrote in his resignation letter.
Just last week, Starmer lost his Defense Secretary John Healey over the government’s defense investment plan.
“You have been unable, and the Treasury has been unwilling, to commit the resources that the nation needs to defend the country at this time of rising threats,” Healey told Starmer.
Starmer’s popularity has plunged after repeated missteps and U-turns on policies such as welfare reform, as well as his disastrous decision to appoint Peter Mandelson, a scandal-tarnished friend of Jeffrey Epstein, as Britain’s ambassador to Washington.
The Labour government, elected in a landslide in 2024, has also failed to deliver promised economic growth and ease a longstanding cost-of-living crisis.
With Post wires
