U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer announces resignation : NPR
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer gives a speech outside 10 Downing Street announcing his resignation following mounting political pressure in London, on Monday.
Wiktor Szymanowicz/Future Publishing via Getty Images
hide caption
toggle caption
Wiktor Szymanowicz/Future Publishing via Getty Images
LONDON — British Prime Minister Keir Starmer has resigned as leader of the United Kingdom’s governing Labour Party, clearing a path for the country’s seventh prime minister in a decade.
Starmer says he will remain as caretaker prime minister until his party selects a new leader. Nominations begin July 9.
The popular former mayor of Greater Manchester, England — Andy Burnham — confirmed on social media that he’ll seek to succeed Starmer. Another contender, former U.K. Health Secretary Wes Streeting, posted a letter saying he will back Burnham’s bid. So Burnham could run for the Labour Party leadership — and ultimately prime minister — uncontested, and enter office in late July.
Andy Burnham, Labour member of Parliament for Makerfield, England, celebrates after his swearing-in at the Houses of Parliament on Monday, in London.
Dan Kitwood/Getty Images
hide caption
toggle caption
Dan Kitwood/Getty Images
The center-left Labour Party was elected two years ago with a landslide majority in the U.K. Parliament. Since then, Starmer’s personal approval ratings have slumped to a historic low. Polls show voters believe he failed to deliver palpable change after austerity and budget cuts under 14 years of previous Conservative Party rule. He was also criticized for appointing Peter Mandelson, a close friend of the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, as British ambassador to Washington.
The next parliamentary elections aren’t expected for another three years. But in recent weeks, as a populist new anti-immigration party has climbed in the polls, fellow Labour lawmakers began calling for Starmer’s ouster.
“The question my party is asking now, is whether I am best placed to lead us into the next general election,” Starmer said in a tearful speech Monday outside 10 Downing Street. “I have heard the answer of my parliamentary party to that question, and I accept the answer with good grace.”
Starmer defended his record, citing increased government spending on defense and healthcare, and a decrease in undocumented migration into the U.K. He said he would give his successor “full and unequivocal support, knowing they will inherit a Britain that is far stronger and fairer than the one I inherited.”
A change of leadership, on the eve of the Brexit anniversary
As Starmer spoke, protesters nearby blasted Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy” — the European Union’s anthem. Tuesday is the 10th anniversary of Britons’ referendum vote to leave the EU — Brexit. That choice triggered a shrinking of the British economy, and contributed to a revolving door of prime ministers.
Britain was still ailing from the global financial crisis of 2008, when it decided to leave the EU, compounding economic damage, says John McTernan, former political secretary to Prime Minister Tony Blair, a former Labour Party leader.
“This is a period in which Britain has done the most harm to itself, by leaving the European Union,” McTernan says. “If you hadn’t had a pay raise in 20 years, you might be getting angry. And that anger — which I think is righteous anger — turns itself on the government, and the governing class.”
That has translated into public support for far-right parties, he said, including the upstart anti-immigrant Reform UK party, led by Nigel Farage, an on-again, off-again friend of President Trump.
In May, Reform swept local municipal elections across England, winning votes in working-class post-industrial areas that traditionally voted Labour. Some polls predict Farage could be the next prime minister.
“That has frightened all of British politics, particularly the Labour Party. A sense of emergency about that has led to them removing a man who is very decent, tries his best, but is incredibly unpopular,” says Polly Toynbee, a Labour insider who writes a column for the Guardian newspaper. “He hasn’t done anything dreadful, hasn’t taken the country into a war. He was there because people wanted a change from the Conservatives, not because there was great enthusiasm for him.”
Enter Burnham, nicknamed “King of the North”
Burnham served as a Labour member of Parliament from 2001 to 2017, representing a district near Manchester, and serving in the governments of then-Prime Ministers Blair and Gordon Brown. Then Burnham quit Parliament and returned home. As mayor of Greater Manchester, he has brought economic growth and development to once-blighted, post-industrial areas.
After Reform’s success in May municipal elections, Labour lawmakers began calling for Starmer’s ouster, but there was no clear successor. So in a coordinated move, a fellow Labour lawmaker resigned, allowing Burnham to run in a June 18 special election for a parliamentary seat in Makerfield, suburban Manchester. Burnham won decisively.
“He beat [Reform] overwhelmingly, in a place where they had just recently won all of the local council seats. So it seems that Andy Burnham is the only man who has the touch in areas like that, to take on Reform UK,” Toynbee notes.
Burnham arrived in London by train from Manchester on Monday afternoon, and was sworn into Parliament — making him eligible, as a new member of Parliament, to replace Starmer.
The Eurasia Group, a political risk firm, predicts Burnham will take office on July 18 or 19.
But analysts say he’ll face many of the same issues that stymied Starmer: rising global energy prices tied to the U.S. and Israeli war on Iran, and uncertainty over how to liaise with an often-volatile, unpredictable Trump administration.
“I think the chances of him staying very popular for long are small. The headwinds are enormous — heavy debt, very difficult to raise more tax, our public services are threadbare,” Toynbee says. “So he does face high expectations, and great difficulties.”
“For Labour, Burnham will be the last throw of the dice,” she says.