From Labour’s Blue-Eyed Boy To Disgraced PM: The Downfall Of Sir Keir Starmer

Last Updated:June 22, 2026, 23:45 IST

Keir Starmer resigns as UK Prime Minister after 700 days, following Andy Burnham’s by-election win, Mandelson Epstein fallout, and collapsing support within Labour

Keir Starmer resigned as Britain’s Prime Minister on Monday after 700 days in office, becoming the sixth person to leave 10 Downing Street since 2016. He announced his departure from a lectern outside the black door of Number 10, his staff assembled along the pavement, while activist Steve Bray played Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy" through a loudspeaker outside the gates.

Bray had played D:Ream’s “Things Can Only Get Better" for Rishi Sunak’s exit two years earlier.

Starmer’s resignation followed Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham’s victory in a special election in the constituency of Makerfield last week. Burnham had publicly framed the by-election as a verdict on Starmer’s leadership.

He won by a larger margin than polling had predicted. Under British parliamentary rules, a sitting MP is required to lead the government, making Burnham’s return to Parliament a necessary precondition for any leadership bid.

When Burnham’s result was declared, he stood between a man dressed as a fox and another wearing a trash can on his head, a consequence of British electoral tradition requiring candidates to share a stage regardless of how they are dressed.

Mandelson’s Appointment & The Epstein Link

Over the weekend, according to BBC reporting, one minister described Starmer as weighing “political realities." No organised effort emerged within the party to keep him. In his resignation speech, Starmer said he had asked Labour MPs whether they wanted him to lead them into the next general election.

He said he accepted their answer “with good grace" and set a timetable for a leadership contest, with a promise to leave office before autumn.

The speech was, by his own recent standard, unusually direct. Starmer made three points in sequence. He told the crowd he had inherited a Labour Party that was “politically, financially, and morally bankrupt" under his predecessor, Jeremy Corbyn, including a period in which antisemitism went unabashedly unchecked in the party’s ranks.

He acknowledged he had lost the confidence of his parliamentary party. He then set the terms for the contest to replace him, leaving the door open for candidates other than Burnham to enter, though none is expected to mount a serious challenge.

His voice, broke when he thanked his wife and children.

The manner of Starmer’s end was, in part, shaped by a decision he made at the start of his premiership. He appointed Peter Mandelson, a long-standing figure in British Labour politics and a known associate of convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, as his ambassador to Washington. Starmer’s own civil service had questioned that appointment.

The broadly accepted account, reported at the time, was that Morgan McSweeney, the strategist credited with Labour’s 2024 general election victory and later Starmer’s chief of staff, was a close associate of Mandelson and had pushed for the posting.

McSweeney resigned after reporting in September 2025 revealed that Mandelson’s personal and financial relationship with Epstein had continued after Epstein’s 2008 conviction for child sex offences, and that Mandelson had not publicly disclosed the full extent of that contact.

The resignation of his chief of staff left a government that was already struggling with its own direction looking more adrift. By June 2026, YouGov polling showed only 6 percent of British adults said they were “very clear" on what Starmer stood for.

411 Seats, One Term, No Majority In His Own Party

Starmer’s 2024 election victory delivered Labour 411 of 650 parliamentary seats. McSweeney’s strategy had targeted what he called “hero voters": older, non-graduate, socially conservative Britons, many of whom had voted for Brexit. Starmer, a former human rights lawyer who had campaigned to remain in the European Union, struggled throughout his time in office to speak credibly to that group.

His attempts to cut welfare benefits collapsed in Parliament after more than 100 Labour MPs voted against him. His Chancellor, Rachel Reeves, cut winter fuel payments for older people, raised employer National Insurance contributions, extended a freeze on income tax thresholds that pulled more earners into the 40 percent and 45 percent brackets, and placed inheritance tax on family farms. Each measure drew significant public opposition.

Net migration fell by 50 percent between 2024 and 2026, according to Guardian reporting citing official figures, and the number of asylum seekers housed in hotels during claims processing dropped. That record did not change Starmer’s political standing.

US President Donald Trump announced Starmer’s resignation on Truth Social before Starmer made it public himself, writing that he had “failed badly" on immigration and energy. Trump’s post was factually inaccurate on immigration, as the 50 percent net migration reduction figure confirms.

Andy Burnham is now the frontrunner set to become the next Prime Minister after Starmer. He has said he accepts the government’s current economic framework and its approach to illegal immigration, despite positioning himself as an alternative to Starmer’s leadership.

He will not serve a full term, with a general election constitutionally required within three years. The leadership contest – that Starmer has set in motion, will decide who takes over before autumn.

About the Author

Anoshito Banerjee

Anoshito Banerjee is a digital journalist at CNN-News18, specialising in Indian foreign policy, global diplomacy, South and West Asian geopolitics, and strategic affairs. His reporting spans hard news...Read More

News world From Labour’s Blue-Eyed Boy To Disgraced PM: The Downfall Of Sir Keir Starmer

Read More