Keir Starmer resigns as UK prime minister after barely two years

U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer on Monday announced that he would step down as both prime minister and leader of the Labour Party, bowing to mounting pressure from within his party after months of declining public support.

Speaking outside 10 Downing Street, Starmer said Labour members had been questioning whether he remained the right person to lead the party into the next general election.

“Our party has been asking whether I am best placed to lead us into the next general election,” he said. “I have heard the answer.”

The outgoing prime minister insisted that every decision he made while in office was guided by the national interest.

“Every decision I have made has been about putting the country I love first,” Starmer added.

Starmer’s resignation marks a dramatic fall for the Labour leader, who only two years ago secured the party’s biggest parliamentary majority since 1997, ending 14 years of Conservative-led government.

However, his administration was later dogged by a series of policy setbacks and controversies that contributed to a sharp decline in his popularity among voters.

Pressure on the 63-year-old intensified following Labour rival Andy Burnham’s decisive by-election victory in North West England, a result widely seen as a challenge to Starmer’s leadership.

Although Starmer had publicly insisted on Friday that he would contest any leadership challenge, reports suggest discussions with senior ministers and a weekend of reflection with his wife, Victoria, at Chequers ultimately influenced his decision to resign.

Several cabinet ministers were understood to have privately advised him that his tenure had run its course, while preparations for a resignation speech reportedly began over the weekend.

Starmer’s departure is expected to trigger a leadership contest within Labour, with Burnham emerging as an early frontrunner to succeed him and potentially become Britain’s seventh prime minister in a decade.