British Prime Minister Keir Starmer announced Monday that he will resign, after facing an uprising within his center-left Labour Party.
The announcement may clear the path to power for Starmer’s likely successor, Andy Burnham. The next prime minister will become the country’s seventh leader in a decade.
It marks an astonishing fall for a leader who sealed a landslide election victory in 2024, riding a wave of popular discontent against 14 years of right-wing Conservative rule. But Starmer’s political fortunes have taken a hit from a series of bruising scandals, while many of his own lawmakers blamed him for policy missteps that have proved deeply unpopular with the public.
Calls for Starmer to quit have intensified since May, when, after just two years in power, he led his party to one of its worst-ever performances in local and regional elections, as Nigel Farage’s hard-right Reform UK made historic gains.
The leader’s key rival within the party is Burnham, the mayor of Greater Manchester, who had openly discussed plans to bring a leadership challenge. Burnham won a special election on Thursday for a seat in Parliament, clearing a crucial hurdle for him to mount such a challenge.
