British Prime Minister Keir Starmer has stepped down.
Today, Starmer declared he would quit as Labour leader and prime minister, ending months of political upheaval and sparking a battle to succeed him, according to AFP.
The declaration comes after a bruising set of local election losses for Labour in May and growing loud rebellion from his own MPs over his leadership and policy agenda has increased the pressure on the prime minister.
It is less than two years since Starmer led Labour to one of its biggest legislative majorities at the 2024 national election.
Starmer, speaking in a statement outside 10 Downing Street just after 9.30am (1430 GMT) in London, said he would stay in office until any leadership race was completed, which he claimed would help ensure an orderly turnover of power.
He says every move he has taken in office has been about “putting the country I love first”. He thanks his “fantastic wife, Vic”, calling her a “rock”.
He also added he wants to be the “best dad I can to my beautiful children who are my pride and joy”
Veteran Labour MP Andy Burnham is set to assume his place in the Commons after winning a key by-election and clearing the way for a likely leadership challenge.
Labour’s bylaws state that the head of the centre-left party must be an MP.
Britain will now have its seventh prime minister in a decade – a rate of change never seen before in its modern history.
The 63-year-old former lawyer had vowed to fight any attempt to remove him but the emphatic nature of Burnham’s victory in last week’s vote in the northwest Makerfield electorate seems to have triggered a reconsideration over the weekend.
US President Donald Trump also said Starmer was on his way out of Downing Street, posting yesterday on his Truth Social platform that “Keir Starmer will resign”.
The American leader, who had an excellent connection with Starmer before the Iran conflict broke it, said he had failed on immigration and energy issues. “I wish him well,” Trump said.
Burnham, who has been Greater Manchester’s mayor since 2017, has indicated he will run to head the floundering Labour, saying in his by-election victory speech that the ruling party had a “final chance to change”.
Time to Reflect
Polling suggests Starmer is very unpopular with voters and spent the weekend holed up with his family at Chequers, the prime minister’s country retreat, having meetings with allies.
Business Secretary Peter Kyle told Sky News he was ‘making time to reflect on the political reality, difficulties and opportunities that he finds himself in’.
Before he resigned, The Guardian claimed that Starmer and his inner circle were drafting his resignation speech, with the most likely timeline seeing him remain in power until after the summer, with the new leader being recognised at the party conference in late September.
Sky News said Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper was one of the senior ministers pressing her boss to go and more than 100 of Labour’s 403 MPs had reportedly requested him to go.
Starmer, who seized power in July 2024, has spent months hanging on following a period plagued with errors, policy U-turns, scandals and ministerial resignations.
He came close to being sacked in March after his ill-judged decision to select Peter Mandelson, a known acquaintance of the late sex criminal Jeffrey Epstein, as the UK’s ambassador to Washington.
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