Starmer quits and sets out plan for new U.K. PM by September

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 bid to succeed him. In a dramatic announcement Monday morning in Downing Street, Starmer said 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” to the winner. “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, adding that he accepted their verdict of him with “good grace.” 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 last week he roundly defeated Reform UK to win his parliamentary seat in Makerfield, near Manchester. Under Starmer Nigel Farage’s populist outfit, which leads national polls of voter intention, had swept all council seats available in local elections on the same turf just six weeks earlier. Former Health Secretary Wes Streeting, who quit Starmer’s cabinet in the wake of the council elections, has made clear his intention to stand in any leadership contest. But under Labour Party rules, contenders need to secure the nominations of a fifth of the Parliamentary Labour Party, and it’s not clear he has the support of 81 Members of Parliament to force a contest against Burnham. 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 a damaging round of local elections last month had privately urged the premier to set out plans for an “orderly transition.” While rum