Keir Starmer announced his resignation as leader of the British Labour Party and as Prime Minister in a highly anticipated address to the nation outside Number 10 Downing Street.
Starmer's departure, reeling from unpopularity and declining support even within Labour, paves the way for his replacement by former Manchester mayor Andy Burnham . Starmer will remain in office until July, when a new prime minister will be chosen.
The expected turnaround was accelerated by the victory of his rival within the Labour Party, Andy Burnham, who won a by-election and entered Parliament .
On Friday, the Prime Minister had announced that he would fight to remain in office, but the pressure on him continued to grow.
Even American President Donald Trump yesterday announced the Labor leader's resignation as imminent, criticizing him ("He has failed spectacularly on two fundamental issues: immigration and energy") and wishing him "the best".
What is sealing Keir Starmer's fate is not only his record unpopularity , the criticism he has received at the head of the government in the two years since his victory in the July 2024 general elections on key issues such as the economy, welfare, defence and immigration, the scandal surrounding the appointment of Lord Peter Mandelson (a friend of the late American paedophile fixer Jeffrey Epstein) as ambassador to the US, or the historic debacle suffered by the Labour Party in the May 7 local elections.
The decisive acceleration, we were saying, was brought about by the arrival in Parliament of the very popular Andy Burnham, a colleague and party rival aligned with more progressive positions, who won the seat of MP in the House of Commons in last week's Makerfield by-election, reversing the rise of the Trumpian right-wing anti-migrant Reform UK of Nigel Farage and the polls that had him forfeited.
The United Kingdom will thus be inaugurating its seventh prime minister in ten years. This is precisely the result of Brexit, the tenth anniversary of which will be tomorrow: a level of political instability unprecedented in the country's modern history .
(Unioneonline)