The UK has just lost its sixth Prime Minister of the decade

Prime Minister of the United Kingdom Keir Starmer has resigned from office less than two years after leading the Labor Party to a landslide general election victory.

Starmer’s popularity has declined since the beginning of his premiership as Britons faced tax rises and spending cuts and struggled to see promised improvements to crumbling public services. Local elections in May underlined Labour’s challenge in keeping British voters on their side, after the party lost nearly 1,500 councilors across the country and lost control of 38 councils. Many of them have been taken over by Nigel Farage’s rival British Reform Party.

“The question for my party now is whether I am best placed to lead us to the next general election,” Starmer said on Monday morning outside his official residence in Downing Street in London. “I have heard my parliamentary party’s answer to that question, and I accept that answer graciously.” A general election in the UK is not scheduled until 2029.

Donald Trump even weighed in over the weekend, predicting resignation in a post on his platform Truth Social and criticizing Starmer for “failing badly” on immigration and energy. Net migration to the UK has declined under Starmer as Prime Minister, although he has struggled to contain the arrival of small boats, a proxy in the public debate of unauthorized migration. Trump is also a critic of the Labor government’s restrictions on oil and gas drilling in the North Sea.

The former Labor mayor of Manchester, Andy Burnham, is expected to replace the embattled Prime Minister after former health secretary Wes Streeting – who resigned from Starmer’s government last month and had previously said he would stand in any leadership contest – pledged his support.

Since the 2016 Brexit referendum, Britain has seen an unprecedented shift in leaders, ranging from the resignation of David Cameron after the Brexit vote, Theresa May in 2019 after failing to secure support for her Brexit deal, Boris Johnson amid a wave of ministerial resignations and scandals, Liz Truss after the market turmoil caused by her reduced budget, and Rishi Sunak after Labour’s landslide general election victory in 2016. 2024.

The pressure on Starmer reached a critical point on Friday after the former Labor mayor of Manchester, Andy Burnham, won a seat in Parliament in a by-election in northwest England. This enables Burnham, who is very popular within his party, to run for leadership, with enough support to even challenge Starmer’s premiership had he not resigned.

Starmer will remain prime minister until the ruling Labor Party elects a new leader, which he said would happen before Parliament resumes in September.

Labour’s victory in the July 2024 general election brought an end to 14 years of Conservative rule, which had seen five different prime ministers. At the time, Starmer criticized the chaos caused by the party’s inconsistency.

More to follow as this story develops.