LONDON, June 22, 2026 (UPI) — Keir Starmer announced Monday that he was standing down as British Prime Minister, saying he had heard the message from his own party that he wasn’t the right person to lead them into the next general election.
“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,” he said in a televised address outside No. 10 Downing Street in London shortly after 9 a.m. local time.
Starmer said he had instructed the Labour Party National Executive to draw up a timetable to select his replacement with a 7-day nomination period starting on July 9 — which, provided there is more than one challenger — fires the starting gun on a race that would see a new leader and prime minister in place by Sept. 1 at the latest.
It could be much sooner if the party throws its support behind a single candidate.
Starmer said he would stay on as prime minister until the process was complete and vowed to do everything he could to “ensure an orderly hand-over of power.”
The move came hours before Andy Burnham, the politician tipped to replace him, was due to be sworn as a Member of Parliament on Monday afternoon after a decisive win in a by-election last week.
Burnham confirmed he would run to replace Starmer, pledging in a post on X there would be no interruption to the business of governing and vowing to deliver on “economic growth, cost of living, public services, housing and opportunities for the next generation,” if he became prime minister.
If the nomination period comes to a close with him as the lone candidate he could be handed the keys to Downing Street as early as July 17 — in a revolving door of leaders that would see him become the country’s seventh prime minister in a decade.
Two of them — Conservatives Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak — never had a mandate from the electorate having been appointed by the Conservative Party in the middle of parliamentary terms, which normally run five years maximum.
The opposition Conservative Party did not immediately comment on Starmer’s resignation but Nigel Farage’s Reform UK said a general election should be called.
“If Labour thinks it can shove another professional politician into No. 10, it has another thing coming. Reform demands an election, and we are ready to deliver radical change,” he wrote in a post on X.
The end came swiftly for Starmer following Manchester Mayor Burnham’s very strong showing in Thursday’s by-election for the parliamentary seat for the Greater Manchester constituency of Makerfield.
Until this morning Starmer, publicly, had vowed to fight any challenge — and as the incumbent gets an automatic bye to stand in any contest — but over the weekend senior figures in his administration persuaded him it was in the interest of the country, and in particular the party, to avoid a messy and potentially damaging fight.
However, Starmer’s problems can be traced back to within months of the landslide election victory he won in July 2024.
Rumblings within the party began after a poor showing in local elections in May 2025, losing a by-election in the “safe” Labour seat of Runcorn and Helsby and declining approval ratings in the polls.
Rebellions by his own MPs forcing policy U-turns, the Peter Mandelson debacle, and more losses at the ballot box, culminating in a disastrous defeat to Reform UK in “mid-term” local elections in May, saw growing numbers of MPs call for him to quit and defections from his cabinet.
