Keir Starmer went from election landslide to downfall after his supporters deserted him

LONDON (AP) — Dutiful rather than dynamic, Keir Starmer was elected Britain’s prime minister to be a safe pair of hands who would end years of political chaos under the Conservatives.His term is ending less than two years later after missteps, party infighting and one colossal error of judgment that indirectly ensnared him in the scandals surrounding Jeffrey Epstein, a man he had never met and whose sexual crimes he was not complicit in.On Monday, Starmer said in an emotional statement that he is stepping down as leader of the governing Labour Party, though he will remain caretaker primer minister until a new Labour leader is chosen in coming weeks.“The question my party is asking now is whether I am best placed to lead us into the next general election,” he said. “I have heard the answer of my parliamentary party to that question, and I accept that answer with good grace.”

Starmer’s selling point was “no more soap opera politics,” said Rob Ford, a political science professor at the University of Manchester. Instead, Ford said, his government was “the antithesis of what he said he was going to be about, and it’s very hard to survive that.”

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