Keir Starmer said he would step down as Britain’s prime minister after suffering a precipitous fall from favor, paving the way for Andy Burnham to succeed him.

On Monday, Burnham, the former mayor of Manchester, said on X that he would “put himself forward.” His prospects of taking over were given a boost when the man most likely to oppose him, former Health Secretary Wes Streeting, almost immediately posted a statement endorsing Burnham, under whose leadership he said he was “convinced” there was a place for his own ideas.

Starmer announced on Monday morning that he would step down first as Labour leader, with nominations for a successor opening July 9 and any contest wrapped up by the end of Parliament’s summer break on Sept. 1. He said he would remain in office until the process is done, and “ensure an orderly handover of power.”

But after the interventions from Burnham and Streeting, it looks likely that a contest will be avoided and that Britain will have a new prime minister next month.

Starmer’s exit opens the door to Britain’s fifth premier since 2022: a jarring milestone for a political system which once prized itself on its stability. Burnham is Starmer’s most likely successor, not least because he demonstrated to his party that he can beat Nigel Farage’s poll-leading populists of Reform UK by winning a special election in Makerfield, near Manchester last week. Reform swept all council seats available in local elections on the same turf just six weeks earlier.

“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,” Starmer said in Downing Street, adding that he accepted their verdict of him with “good grace.”

Under Starmer’s timeline, nominations for the leadership contest would close on July 16, and if only one candidate has met the nominations criteria they could become prime minister as soon as July 17 or 18, according to a person familiar with the matter. If there’s a contest, it would play out through the remaining weeks of the summer.

Farage on Monday called for a general election, saying on X that his party stood “ready to deliver radical change.” Main opposition Conservative Party Leader Kemi Badenoch said Starmer had been a “terrible prime minister,” while Ed Davey, leader of Parliament’s third party, the Liberal Democrats, said “the British people are sick of being let down by an endless merry-go-round of Prime Ministers while nothing really changes.”

Streeting said Burnham’s win last week was a “victory for unity and hope over division and hatred,” and that after speaking “at length” with Burnham, he was persuaded the Manchester politician — who hails from Labour’s so-called soft left — was committed to building an “inclusive” party.

“We could spend the summer exaggerating small differences, or we can roll up our sleeves and help him deliver the change our party and our country needs,” Streeting said. “That is the choice I am making and I hope that everyone else will back Andy, too.”

In laying out a timetable for his departure, Starmer was responding to the demands of scores of his own backbenchers and also cabinet ministers including Energy Secretary Ed Miliband, who even before the damaging round of local elections last month had privately urged the premier to set out plans for an “orderly transition.”

While rumblings of discontent had long swirled within Labour around Starmer’s leadership following a string of missteps, unpopular policy decisions and costly U-turns, the local elections in early May crystallized the rebellion. In the wake of that disastrous vote for Labour around a quarter of the party’s 403 MPs called on the premier to go. It had lost almost 60% of the seats it was defending while Farage’s Reform and the Green Party made big gains.

A week after those elections, Josh Simons said he was stepping down as Makerfield’s representative in order to pave the way for Burnham to secure the Parliamentary seat he needed from which to challenge Starmer for the leadership. Having blocked Burnham from standing in a different special election earlier in the year, this time the premier was unable to prevent him from targeting the seat.

Before Starmer emerged from No. 10 Downing St. on Monday morning, staff lined up outside, alongside key allies of the premier including Deputy Prime Minister David Lammy, Chief Secretary to the Prime Minister Darren Jones and Attorney General Richard Hermer. Then, as the prime minister began to speak, protesters on nearby Whitehall blared out the choral strains of Beethoven’s Ode to Joy, the anthem of the European Union, which Britain voted to leave a decade ago.

Starmer began his intervention with a summary of his successes in turning around a Labour Party that six years ago, he said was “politically, financially, and morally bankrupt.”

“The hard work of change was with a singular purpose, not power for power’s sake, but to change Britain for the better, to build a fairer country with dignity and respect,” Starmer said.

He pointed to a strengthening economy, falling National Health Service waiting lists, improved workers’ rights and half a million children lifted out of poverty as key successes, as well as Britain’s support for Ukraine and the strengthening of ties with the EU some six years after Brexit was completed.

He offered his successor his “full and unequivocal support, knowing that they will inherit a Britain that is far stronger and fairer than the one I inherited two years ago, better prepared for the challenges ahead and better able to ensure the Labour Party secures a second term in office.”

Then the premier’s voice faltered as he thanked his family and said he would devote more time to them after resigning.

____

—With assistance from Jacob Reid.

©2026 Bloomberg L.P. Visit bloomberg.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.