Starmer is on the precipice as pressure builds for the UK leader to resign
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer faces a career-defining decision: resign or fight off a challenge from his Labor rival Andy Burnham.
Starmer has publicly pledged to stay in office, but pressure is mounting as his Labor colleagues increasingly decide his time is up. Expectations are increasing that he will announce the timetable for his resignation on Monday. This is the day Burnham will be sworn in as an MP in the House of Commons after winning a special election last week.
Starmer is spending the weekend with his family at Chequers, the country mansion used by British prime ministers.
Business Minister Peter Kyle said on Sunday that Starmer had “taken time to reflect on the political realities, challenges and opportunities he finds himself in”.
Speaking to the BBC, Kyle said, “I know that he is a prime minister who always puts his country first,” but said that reports that Starmer would resign were “speculation”.
Discontent with the prime minister has been growing for months as Labor MPs are desperate to reverse the decline in the government’s popularity since Starmer led the centre-left party to a landslide election victory in July 2024.
He has struggled to deliver the economic growth he promised, repair aging public services and ease living costs, and has been thwarted by repeated missteps, including his decision to appoint Jeffrey Epstein’s scandal-tainted friend Peter Mandelson as the United Kingdom’s ambassador to the United States.
Labor is losing liberal voters to the growing Green Party and faces a rising Reform UK, the anti-immigration party led by Nigel Farage that has consistently led in nationwide opinion polls.
Burnham, until this week the popular mayor of Greater Manchester, won the seat of Makerfield in north-west England emphatically in a special election on Thursday. He received almost 55% of the 45,510 votes cast; this took Reform UK’s runner-up by more than 9,000 votes.
Now that he is an MP, he is in a position to challenge Starmer for the leadership of the Labor Party. Burnham’s acceptance speech left no doubt that she wanted to lead both the party and the country.
“Everyone knows politics doesn’t work,” he said. “Everyone can feel that the country is not where it should be. Tonight could be a turning point, it could be.”
Starmer congratulated Burnham on Friday but insisted he would fight any attempt to oust her.
Starmer said if there is a leadership contest for the Labor Party, “I will run, I will survive.” “I have said many times that I will not give up on this”
But Charlie Falconer, the senior Labor member of the House of Lords, said on Saturday that Starmer had “absolutely no power” left.
“There should be an agreed transition period where Andy and Keir will collaborate on when the handover will take place,” he told the BBC.
