Starmer accepted fate with a small act of vengeance

Tuesday, 23 June 2026

Britain

It was the moment that reality hit home. Shortly after 1.30pm Andy Burnham, the effective prime minister in waiting, emerged in a cab from the bowels of Euston station to make his way to parliament to be sworn in.

The new Labour MP for Makerfield had considered taking the Tube to Westminster but aides had advised against doing so. It was just as well. As the taxi emerged it was mobbed by dozens of photographers and journalists.

As Burnham looked up through the taxi's glass roof he could see a news helicopter hovering overhead, filming his every move. As mayor of Greater Manchester, Burnham had been free to go as and when he pleased. Being prime minister is a different order of magnitude.

Burnham finds himself attempting to build a platform for government in the space of three and a half weeks. There is a very real possibility that he will be the only candidate for the Labour leadership when nominations open on July 9. They close one week later. He could be prime minister on July 17, two days before the World Cup final.

It is not how Burnham's allies would have liked it. In their ideal world he would have had more time, entering No 10 in September ready for Labour conference. As it stands, Burnham faces the prospect of entering office with little or no time to prepare. Some of his supporters are daunted by the scale of the challenge ahead.

One Labour source said that senior figures in his camp had made clear to Starmer that they wanted him to stay on over the summer to give them time to get ready. He did not give them that luxury. “Keir's point of view was they wanted him out and if he was doing such a terrible job, why should he wait till September?” the source said.

Burnham will have to adjust quickly. His journey to London, predictably, turned into something of a circus. He arrived at Manchester Piccadilly after bidding farewell to the Greater Manchester mayoralty, running the gauntlet of journalists and photographers as he made his way through the station.

At this point his attire was distinctly smart casual: he wore a navy-blue T-shirt, jeans and Adidas trainers, and took a suitcase and a bottle of San Pellegrino water. He boarded the 10.54am Avanti West Coast train to Euston and travelled first class. Unfortunately for Avanti's PR team, the train arrived 21 minutes late, enough to entitle Burnham, who has put nationalisation at the heart of his agenda, for compensation under the delay repay scheme.

When he emerged from the train he was a man transformed, having changed into a new suit on the way. He arrived in Westminster just in time to be sworn in as an MP, where he was met by roars from supporters and heckles of “Rome is saved” and “he's not the Messiah”, to which Burnham replied: “Naughty boy.”

The coronation continued apace. At 3pm he arrived Westminster for a photo call with Labour MPs.

They turned out in their hundreds, including cabinet ministers who until relatively recently were Starmer loyalists to the core: Rachel Reeves, the chancellor, James Murray, the health secretary, and Jonathan Reynolds, the chief whip. The transfer of power was there in a selfie, for all to see.

Burnham spent the rest of the afternoon in his new office in Portcullis House, where his first meeting was with Steve Rotheram, mayor of the Liverpool City region. He will attempt to keep a low profile in the next few days, holding talks with as many MPs as possible. There will be a focus on the 2024 intake, given that he has yet to meet many of them.

The jubilation surrounding Burnham's arrival could not have contrasted more starkly with Starmer's departure.

On Friday morning, the prime minister insisted that he would not walk away as the scale of Burnham's by-election victory in Makerfield became apparent. That afternoon, however, a series of brutal conversations with cabinet ministers made clear that the choice was no longer in his hands.

The Times has been told that the decision to quit was reached on Saturday, when he drafted a version of his speech with aides. He spent the rest of the weekend speaking to barely anyone other than his wife and his closest aides.

Just after 9.30am the prime minister and his wife stepped out of Downing Street to announce his resignation after less than two years in the job.

The immediate audience was limited to Starmer's closest allies - about half a dozen cabinet ministers and a smattering of aides. Reeves, who that morning had been spotted going on a run, was notably absent.

Much of Starmer's speech focused on what he saw as his biggest achievements as Labour leader and in office. When he became leader, he said, he inherited a party that was 'politically, financially and morally bankrupt'.

Some Labour MPs pointed out that there was no acknowledgment of his litany of failings: the failure to prepare for power; the multitude of U-turns; the ever-shifting list of priorities.

There was a final, small act of revenge against Burnham. Starmer announced the formal process for a potential leadership contest, giving MPs three weeks to muster the support needed to stand. It is possible that a challenger will emerge, although it is unlikely. Nobody is working under the illusion that Burnham can be stopped, but the hope is that a contest could be used to flush out some of his ideas.

Burnham has the support of more than 200 MPs and the decision by Wes Streeting, the former health secretary, to fold in behind him has tipped the balance in his favour.

The next three weeks will be frenetic for Burnham. His team say he has not made any promises about government roles but is keen to avoid the appearance of “factionalism”. As well he might. For now, Burnham is able to ride all horses. But the MPs who have given him their support, on the basis that he is the man to beat Nigel Farage, are by nature divided among Labour’s many tribes. One of Starmer’s biggest failings was the inability to keep his coalition of support together. It is a lesson Burnham is said to be keen to learn from.

Britain is now less than a month away from its seventh prime minister in the space of a decade. Burnham will be hoping that he can defy the precedent of those who came before him, all of whom offered near-identical prospectuses of hope and change, only for the gloss to come off and to find themselves consigned to the scrapheap of history.