British Prime Minister Keir Starmer on Monday said he would step down following a rebellion in his Labour Party, clearing the way for Andy Burnham, a left-wing former mayor, to likely become the country’s sixth prime minister in seven years.
Speaking outside Downing Street, Starmer said he would quit as Labour leader but stay on as prime minister to ensure an orderly transition to his successor, a process that should be complete by September.
Starmer’s decision comes days after Burnham was elected to Parliament on a promise to launch a leadership challenge to oust Starmer and shake up the Labour Party, which is trailing anti-immigration party Reform UK in public-opinion polls.
“The question my party is asking now is whether I am best placed to lead us into the next general election,” Starmer said. “I have heard the answer of my parliamentary party to that question and I accept that answer with good grace.”
British politics has become increasingly unstable in the past decade, starting with the 2016 vote for Brexit that showed new fault lines over issues like globalization and immigration that started to crack the traditional Labour-Conservative domination of the past century. A succession of shocks—Brexit, the pandemic, the war in Ukraine—together with weak economic growth and a surge in immigration has left many voters disenchanted.
Over the weekend, Labour lawmakers ratcheted up pressure on Starmer to make way for Burnham to avoid a protracted civil war within the party. His departure pledge will allow party members to elect a new Labour leader, who would then become prime minister.
Under Labour rules, any lawmaker can challenge the prime minister by getting the support of at least a fifth of party lawmakers. While someone else could challenge Burnham for the top spot, he is widely expected to win.
The coup is a remarkable turn for a country that has seen its share of political turnover in recent years, and a first for Labour, which has never ousted one of its own leaders during their first term in power, especially one that is less than two years into a five-year term.
But growing numbers of Labour lawmakers felt that keeping Starmer would lead to a wipeout in the next general election in 2029 and that Burnham, who polls much better with voters, gives them their best shot at keeping their jobs and fending off Reform and its leader, Nigel Farage.
Burnham tried and failed twice to become Labour leader in 2010 and 2015. He was until recently the mayor of Greater Manchester, the U.K.’s second-most-populous metro region, overseeing a budget of £3 billion, equivalent to about $3.97 billion.
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