Keir Starmer to resign as British prime minister

“The question my party is asking now is whether I am best placed to lead us into the next election,” Starmer said Monday outside 10 Downing Place in London. “I have heard the answer. And I accept that answer with good grace. Every decision I have made has been about putting the country I love first. I will resign as leader of the Labour Party,” he said.

Starmer said he would remain as prime minister until a new Labour Party was elected in a parliamentary election in the next few weeks. Depending on a series of political events within the country, Starmer could be out of office as soon as July or as late as September. Whenever he departs, he said he would give his successor his “full and unequivocal support.”

The next prime minister will be Britain’s seventh in 10 years.

Starmer began his press conference reminiscing of when he was elected prime minister in a landslide election in 2024. He called the moment the “proudest” of his life, touting the accomplishment. 

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“Walking out this street two years ago was the proudest moment of my life,” Star said. “A new Labour government, the first in 14 years. A page in our country’s history turned after years of disappointment and despair. The chance to change the lives of millions of people for the better. That’s what I came into politics for. 

“The journey to that point was not easy. Six years ago, I inherited a Labour Party that was politically, financially, and morally bankrupt. I was told time and time again that my party was finished, that we were consigned to history, that a majority in a general election, let alone a landslide majority was impossible. But we proved those people wrong.”

After Starmer’s announcement, Reform UK leader Nigel Farage demanded a general election after Burnham’s ascension as Labour party leader.

“I’ve no idea whether there’ll be a contest or a coronation, but what I do know is the British public have simply had enough of political parties chopping and changing their leaders at will,” Farage said. “We vote for somebody in a general election to be our prime minister. We expect them to serve their term, and, barring ill health or exceptional circumstances, what is going on here, frankly, is reminiscent of a banana republic that has totally devalued the very process of general elections and democracy.”

“We are ready for a general election, and I suspect many of you too are ready for a general election,” he added.” The thought we’re going to go through weeks, maybe months of paralysis in a country whose debt is rising faster than any country in the world, apart from Botswana, where the boats continue to come across the English Channel every every day, the whole thing is not acceptable. Let’s have a general election, let’s get a government with a clear democratic mandate.”

The ghost of Epstein

The first serious calls to sack Starmer, the first Labour prime minister since 2010, began in January almost immediately following revelations that Lord Peter Mandelson — his appointed ambassador to the United States — offered government information to convicted sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein.

Mandelson was sacked as ambassador in September when the “depth” of his relationship to Epstein were revealed by releases from the U.S. Department of Justice, but the black mark on the British government only worsened when the dealings between the two were brought to light earlier this year.

Emails released in late January indicate that Mandelson received approximately $75,000 from Epstein and offered the convicted sex trafficker insights on political affairs while serving in former Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s Cabinet. Epstein also made multiple payments to Mandelson’s romantic partner — and a photo emerged showing Mandelson himself without pants interacting with a woman whose identity was redacted.

The story dominated British headlines for months, and the Labour government tried to distance itself from the ambassador whom it had selected, vetted, and appointed.

That outcry escalated to deafening levels after the prime minister was forced to admit in parliament that his government had been made aware of that relationship but decided to proceed with the appointment anyway.

“Did the official security vetting [the prime minister] received mention Mandelson’s ongoing relationship with the pedophile Jeffrey Epstein?” Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch asked in early February at Prime Minister’s Questions.

“Yes, it did,” Starmer responded, stuttering at multiple points as jeers and gasps filled the House of Commons. “As a result, various questions were put to him.”

Starmer previously maintained that he would not be giving up his position — even as the chorus of critics demanding his resignation began to include members of his own party.

Scottish Labour Party leader Anas Sarwar became the first major ally to call for Starmer to step down on Feb. 9, affirming that he considers the prime minister a close friend but lamenting how the Mandelson affair has sucked the oxygen out of Labour’s public relations.

“The distraction needs to end, and leadership in Downing Street needs to change,” Sarwar told reporters, adding that “there have been too many incidences where the wrong judgment calls have been made.”

Electoral bloodbath and rise of Reform

Tensions remained at a simmer in the ensuing months, only to explode after Labour suffered an electoral bloodbath in the May 7 local elections. Labour lost more than 1,100 seats it began the day with, winning just over 1,000 seats that were up for grabs. It lost control of Wales after a century in power, and saw its worst turnout yet in the Scottish elections.

By May 11, more than 60 Labour MPs called upon Starmer to resign. Four Parliamentary Private Secretaries, junior members of the government, resigned and used the opportunity to call upon Starmer to step down. The prime minister had accepted responsibility for the May 7 losses, but vowed to hold on in a speech on May 11.

It’s a swift end for the Labour prime minister — less than two years after winning an election retroactively seen as a referendum on a succession of Tory leaders who failed to deliver on the basic promises of their platform.

Starmer’s downfall is hardly a shock, however. He suffered a sharp and catastrophic collapse of support in the second half of 2024. His favorability never recovered and after fourteen months he was the most unpopular prime minister in the past 50 years, and one of the most unpopular in the democratic world.

While the Mandelson affair was the most high-profile killer, his inability to turn the U.K.’s lagging economy around was the main culprit. Successive governments have been sunk by chronic economic stagnation and an inability to lower the cost of living. The U.S.-Israeli war with Iran and ensuing blockade of the Strait of Hormuz had a disproportionate impact on the U.K., and obliterated any chances of a quick recovery.

The U.K. isn’t unique in being unable to face these problems — the same economic issues have savaged the governments of France, Germany, and elsewhere in Europe.

Starmer was also accused from his left and right flanks of failing to properly address a historic spike in antisemitism in the U.K., coinciding with wars in Gaza and the Middle East. Several terrorist attacks against Jewish synagogues and other targets, and a deluge of anti-Jewish hate crimes, drew widespread accusations that the premier wasn’t doing enough to address the problem. After the stabbing of two Jews in in Golders Green, protesters began referring to the prime minister as “Keir Starmer, Jew Harmer.”

Critics to his right openly speculated that his reluctance to take action came from a hesitance to anger the pro-Palestinian and anti-Israel segments of his party, as well as the country’s growing Muslim community.

Reform UK, the United Kingdom’s surging third-party, has seized the moment to scoop up disaffected Conservative voters with a bombastic declaration that the two-party system is over in Britain.

The right-wing project, which revolves around arch-Euroskeptic and Brexit architect Nigel Farage, now polls well ahead of both Labour and the Tories.

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The Labour Party is not required to call a new general election until 2029. Labour leaders hope this will be enough time to turn the party, and country, around under new leadership. Burnham, who cut his teeth as a politician under the leadership of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, is under no obligation to go to the polls should he become the next leader.

If the next prime minister is able to turn public opinion around and garner some popular support, Labour leaders may decide it best to call that general election sooner — preferably at the height of the bounce in the polls.