It felt inevitable and perhaps it was: Sir Keir Starmer has resigned and looks very likely to be replaced by Andy Burnham as Prime Minister.
Burnham won a decisive victory in last week’s Makerfield by-election, beating out Reform UK by 20 points, exceeding even the pollsters’ predictions. The unique nature of the contest has made it hard to draw any decisive conclusions about the result’s significance for British politics more broadly, but it has now all but guaranteed that Burnham will be PM by September.
Burnham has effectively acknowledged that his leadership may well be a last roll of the dice for Labour. Despite the majority they won in 2024, razor thin victories in many of their seats make it one of the most marginal governments since 1945. Accordingly, Keir Starmer swiftly became the least popular Prime Minister since records began, with Reform UK and the Green Party surging in the polls at his expense.
Is this the biggest challenge for any Prime Minister?
What does it mean to be the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom in 2026?At the time of writing, …