The end, when it came on Monday, was inevitable. Sir Keir Starmer, the embattled Labour prime minister who has resisted calls over two months from senior party members to quit, announced in an emotional address outside Downing Street that he had resigned as prime minister and leader of the party.
No successor has yet been chosen, but everyone expects Andy Burnham, the former mayor of Manchester, to take over in the next few weeks. Until then, Starmer will remain in office as a caretaker prime minister. He will attend an important NATO summit in Turkey, where he will urge the European allies to continue strong support for Ukraine – even though his government was unable to agree a new defence budget for Britain. He will also attend meetings with European Union leaders to try to bring Britain closer to the EU ten years after the country voted for Brexit.
Starmer’s fall, only two years after winning a landslide victory for Labour in the general election, is a personal and political tragedy. Britain will now have its seventh prime minister in 10 years – an unprecedented period of political turbulence in a democracy once seen as the most stable in Europe. Italy, by contrast, formerly mocked for its frequent changes of government since the Second World War, now has one of the most stable, with Georgia Meloni in office for more than four years. Starmer will also be one of the shortest-lasting Labour prime ministers in a century.
What went wrong for him? He came to office at a time of huge challenges. Britain’s economy was devastated by the covid pandemic, high inflation, low productivity, low growth and recently the shock of rising energy prices because of the Iran war. But Starmer, a straightforward but rather colourless former director of public prosecutions, was never able to show leadership or offer voters a credible vision of how to get the country moving again. He was a boring public speaker, and unlike Tony Blair, a former successful Labour prime minister in office for 10 years, Starmer had no clear policies for change and renewal. He was slow to take decisions, and was afraid to take necessary but unpopular measures to reduce Britain’s growing debt, cut the growing cost of welfare payments and promote business-friendly policies. Above all, he refused to confront many of the new left-wing members of parliament who demanded traditional Labour policies on greater welfare payments for pensioners and lower-paid workers. He backed down in the face of opposition to plans to cut winter fuel payments for pensioners and this became a pattern. Every time the government proposed unpopular measures, it retreated. Starmer looked weak to his party, weak to the voters and weak to his cabinet colleagues.
Starmer also made some fatal mistakes. Right at the start he was criticised for foolishly accepting gifts of free spectacles and clothes for his wife from a rich Labour supporter. This looked like petty corruption. He also allowed Rachel Reeves, the chancellor of the exchequer (equivalent to finance minister) to propose a disastrous budget in the first year, putting a new tax on employment and angering farmers with a much criticised proposal to tax family-owned farms more heavily. But the most important error was his appointment of Peter Mandelson, the former high-ranking Labour minister, as ambassador to Washington. Mandelson had been a close friend of Jeffrey Epstein, the notorious American sex abuser. Starmer was warned about these past connections, but refused to listen and insisted on sending Mandelson to Washington. When the scandal broke, Mandelson was sacked and Starmer was forced to apologise. One by one, Starmer’s senior advisers resigned, saying that the prime minister was unable to take decisions. It took him more than a year to implement a Supreme Court decision that only biological females were legally women, and that trans people were not entitled to use women’s toilets or private spaces.
Until the last moment, and after the resignation of several cabinet ministers, Starmer insisted he would lead the party into the next general election. But Labour has become very unpopular in the country and Starmer’s poll ratings are some of the lowest ever recorded. Local council elections in May showed a disastrous loss of Labour councillors in towns across Britain. The trade unions, who usually fund the Labour party, said they did not want Starmer to lead the country into the next general election in 2029. And the government was increasingly challenged by the fast rise of the far-right party, Reform, and by the Greens who have become very radical on the left, calling for higher taxes on the rich and stronger support for the Palestinians.
Few people know much about Burnham, a former junior minister in the last Labour government, who left politics and established himself as a very successful and popular mayor of Manchester, a relatively prosperous northern city. He is known by his friends as the “King of the North” and wants to cut back on the influence of London and bolster other parts of the country. He fought a successful local election against Reform, popular in many working-class areas, and has made no secret of wanting to be prime minister. He was sworn in as a member of Parliament in Westminster only hours after Starmer announced his resignation.
So far, no one else has announced they will challenge Burnham to be Labour leader, and those who also called for Starmer to resign have said they will support him. But without a party contest, the country will learn little about his policies. His appointment will be simply a “coronation.” There are many fears among businessmen that he is too left-wing and has no clear idea of how to work with private enterprise to promote growth. Britain’s failing economy is the biggest challenge now facing the country. He has promised to stay within fiscal limits and not to increase Britain’s debts – but has not said how he will pay for defence or for the reforms he wants to make.
The one area that will change little is foreign policy. Starmer was largely successful in the difficult challenge of dealing with President Trump. He was also a firm backer of Ukraine, a strong supporter of NATO, and one of the most enthusiastic allies of President Zelensky. But foreign policy is of little interest to most voters, who are more concerned about wages and inflation. Burnham has no record in foreign policy or of meeting other European allies. He is likely to continue supporting Ukraine’s resistance to Russian aggression, but may not increase Britain’s defence budget as much as all military chiefs insist it must rise.
Like the other European leaders, Burnham will find it difficult to deal with Trump, who, with typical narcissistic ingratitude, said that Starmer had been a failure, with bad policies on immigration and energy. Burnham will not get involved in Trump’s war against Iran. But he has been warned repeatedly about Russia’s continued provocations against NATO, and especially against Britain, with a Russian warship recently firing shots at a British private yacht in the English Channel. And British policy on Ukraine will not change, although it will not be a priority as Burnham draws up plans to focus mainly on Britain’s sluggish economy, deal with illegal migrants and bring down the cost of living.
British voters are acutely aware that the rapid changes of prime minister have made the country look out of control and ungovernable. This has led to dismay and mockery from Britain’s allies, especially America. If Burnham is to restore any of Britain’s influence in the world, he will have to move fast and decisively, not afraid to take unpopular decisions, when he takes up residence in 10 Downing Street, the prime minister’s official home.
