The Observer (“Starmer expected to resign on Monday and set out orderly exit“):Keir Starmer is preparing to set out a timetable for his departure from No 10 this week after Andy Burnham’s triumphant return to Westminster in the Makerfield byelection.
The prime minister is understood to have reached the conclusion that his position is no longer tenable after conversations in recent days with cabinet ministers, Downing Street advisers, trade union leaders, and party donors.
Although Starmer is spending the weekend talking his future over with his wife, Victoria, at Chequers before making a final decision, senior Labour figures believe a “clear statement” could come as early as Monday.
One Labour peer, who is close to the prime minister, insisted Starmer would not “walk away” from No 10 creating a vacuum but would “arrange a deliberate slow march in good order, as a matter of duty and dignity”. The friend said: “I think he sees the realities. Stopping ‘chaos’ (as he rightly put it) is now not possible by staying, so that only leaves one option. I think he has come to see it as the dutiful option to serve the country and the party.”
Another Labour grandee said the prime minister now appeared “resigned” to stepping down. “He’s come up hard against the reality that the support isn’t there,” the source said. “The truth is everyone knows this is no longer a tenable proposition. There’s a sadness about it all, of course, but sometimes there’s just an inevitability in politics and as Boris Johnson said, ‘When the herd moves it moves’.”
A cabinet minister said Starmer was “calmly going through things” after a series of highly personal conversations with his closest allies over recent days. “He just wants to do what’s right for the country and, having spoken to the people he wants, he is now spending quality time with his most important adviser – Vic,” the minister said.
Burnham, who defied the odds to trounce Reform UK at last week’s byelection in the Greater Manchester seat, will be sworn in as an MP on Monday. He is due to meet the prime minister early this week.
His supporters claim he has now secured the support of more than 201 Labour MPs to challenge Starmer for the leadership if the prime minister does not step down voluntarily.
This is a critical number because it represents more than half the Parliamentary Labour party and means that Starmer can no longer tell the King that he is able to command the confidence of the House of Commons.
The Observer is not my go-to source for news about the UK, but they appear to have broken the story and are cited by Reuters and other more mainstream outlets.
This development is not shocking, of course. Starmer has been in trouble for quite some time, and speculation about his departure has been building for months.
Burnham will be the fifth PM in as many years. Boris Johnson resigned in September 2022, Liz Truss only made it to October, and Rishi Sunak was ousted by Starmer in the July 2024 elections. That’s a lot of turnover in a short time.
It certainly seems strange from an American perspective, where we have fixed presidential terms. But there’s something to be said for changing leadership when the head of government is no longer able to effectively govern. Constant turnover may be preferable to gridlock.
Starmer is wildly unpopular, even among Labour members. Britons are frustrated with the state of the economy and the slow rate of change. Labour has until September 2029 to turn things around before facing voters again. They have lost confidence in Starmer to make that happen.
As an aside, a comparison of the Number 10 Downing and White House flickr pages is interesting. Starmer is much less centered in the feed than is Trump. (And, if anything, the Trump 47 page is considerably less dedicated to hero shots than any previous administration’s.) Hell, his “offical portrait” is simply a photo of him standing alone with the cabinet table behind him. Presumably, this is a function of the PM being merely the head of government, while POTUS combines that role with the head of state role that the crown occupies in the UK.
