United Kingdom

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer Has Resigned. His Replacement Will Likely Be More of the Same.

The Labour leadership race is likely to replace one unpopular big-government prime minister with another.

Reem Ibrahim | 6.22.2026 5:56 AM

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After less than two years in office, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer has resigned. "The question my party is asking now is whether I am best placed to lead us into the next general election. I have heard the answer of my parliamentary party to that question, and I accept that answer with good grace," he said at a press conference this morning. "Every decision I've taken has been about putting the country I love first. That is why I will resign as leader of the Labour Party."

Starmer said he had spoken to the King to inform him of the decision, and would ask the National Executive Committee, the Labour Party's governing body, to set out a timetable for the leadership race to decide his successor. Nominations will open on July 9, and if there is a contest, his successor will be chosen by the summer recess. Keir Starmer will remain as prime minister until the leadership contest is complete.

The announcement follows more than half a dozen cabinet ministers privately telling him to leave No. 10 Downing Street, and a weekend of speculation that he was mulling over the decision with his wife at the Chequers country retreat. On Thursday, Andy Burnham, the former mayor of Greater Manchester and favourite to replace Starmer, was elected as the member of Parliament for Makerfield. Burnham, nicknamed the "King of the North," won 55 percent of the vote in the constituency and said that voters had issued a "call for change" in his victory speech. He is the public's preferred choice to replace Starmer,........

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