Keir Starmer was once hailed as the leader who would bring pragmatism and stability to Britain after years of political chaos. When he quit as prime minister on Monday, the very lack of ideology that propelled him to power drove his downfall.
After guiding the Labour Party into power in 2024 with the biggest parliamentary majority in Britain’s modern history, Starmer focused on what he believed was possible to achieve, rather than setting out a clear vision of a future Britain.
He soon came to be seen by many voters and members of his party as lacking conviction and a clear direction, more than 20 party insiders said. He had no big idea.
Without what one senior Labour lawmaker called “a guiding light”, the former lawyer was buffeted by competing Labour factions, lobbied by vested interests and misunderstood by wary voters, many of whom came to hate what they saw as his indecision and his robotic performances.
His policies often unravelled, resignations and sackings from his team followed, and the remaining trusted aides around him struggled to help him offer the country a clear narrative of what his government wanted to do to “change Britain”.
Starmer, 63, increasingly turned to his wife Victoria for reliable advice. On May 12, five days after disastrous local election results for Labour prompted calls for him to quit, he had a long lunch with her and emerged determined to fight on.
But it was a weekend away at the prime minister’s country residence in Chequers with his wife that appeared to have persuaded him to change course, bend to the inevitable and resign.
On the doorstep of his Downing Street office and residence, he said he would do everything to allow an orderly transfer of power to the next Labour leader, expected to be his rival Andy Burnham, the former Greater Manchester mayor.
“The question my party is asking now is whether I am best placed to lead us into the next general election,” he said in an emotional speech when his voice broke when he thanked his family foir their support. (Reuters)