Labour Party MP for Makerfield, Andy Burnham being sworn in after his win in the recent by-election, in the House of Commons in London on May 22, 2026. Burnham is tipped to replace Keir Starmer who resigned as the leader of the Labour Party and UK Prime Minister on Monday.
British Labour MP Andy Burnham looks set to be airdropped into Downing Street to replace Prime Minister Keir Starmer. He’s promising “renewal for our party and our country,” after the sitting prime minister effectively burned the greatest parliamentary majority in over a hundred years with scandals, a lack of empathy, and a notoriously belligerent line on the country’s relationship with Israel.
However, despite the premature hailing of Burnham as someone who could reinvigorate the Labour vote, all signs point to him delivering Starmerism without Starmer.
Starmer resigned on Monday as the most unpopular prime minister in modern British history, six weeks after the Labour Party lost almost 1,500 seats in local elections across England. His resignation opened a leadership contest that Burnham, a Labour veteran who served under Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, and who re-entered parliament after winning a by-election in Makerfield, Manchester, last week, is all but guaranteed to win.
