From Labour’s Blue-Eyed Boy To Disgraced PM: The Downfall Of Sir Keir Starmer
From Labour’s Blue-Eyed Boy To Disgraced PM: The Downfall Of Sir Keir Starmer Published By, Last Updated: June 22, 2026, 23:52 IST Keir Starmer resigns
From Labour’s Blue-Eyed Boy To Disgraced PM: The Downfall Of Sir Keir Starmer Published By, Last Updated: June 22, 2026, 23:52 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 British Prime Minister Keir Starmer speaks as he announces the timeline for his resignation, outside 10 Downing Street, in London, Britain, June 22, 2026. (Image Courtesy: Jaimi Joy/REUTERS) 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.
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