The political drama in the UK is escalating hour by hour.
Sunday morning, Sky News reports that Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper has privately asked Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer to resign.
This comes after Andy Burnham surprisingly won the by-election in the picturesque town of Makerfield on Friday.
He won the election by a landslide: over 50 percent of the vote and a margin of more than 9,000 votes over Reform UK's candidate, Robert Kenyon.
Now the British press is asking the question:
Will Burnham become Britain's prime minister if Starmer falls?
If so, he will be the eighth prime minister to enter 10 Downing Street in nearly 10 years.
Stampede towards Starmer
The Observer newspaper reports this weekend that Starmer is preparing to resign, and that he could announce a timetable for his departure as early as tomorrow, Monday.
This is not the first time Starmer's resignation has been speculated about. It has simply become difficult to keep up with the number of times the prime minister has come out and said he will fight for the job.
A message he repeated as recently as two days ago.
But according to The Observer's sources, Starmer has now "realized that the support is not there." That the foreign secretary is said to have asked him to resign only reinforces that impression.
The number of Labour MPs who have publicly and explicitly asked Starmer to resign has now passed 100. That accounts for about a quarter of the Labour group in the House of Commons.
The way back
Andy Burnham left Westminster in 2017 to become Mayor of Greater Manchester.
At that time, he was already a fairly experienced politician who had held several important ministerial posts in Gordon Brown's Labour government.
- Chief Secretary to the Treasury, 2007–2008.
- Secretary of State for Culture, 2008–2009.
- Secretary of State for Health, 2009–2010.
Now, nine years after leaving parliament, he is back.
Burnham is expected to be sworn into the House of Commons on Monday.
According to several media outlets, he then plans to speak with Starmer and present a list of his supporters.
Sky News writes that Burnham's camp wants the prime minister to present a plan in the coming days, but will allow Starmer to remain until September. Sam Coates, the channel's political editor, says they want to consolidate power.
Burnham's recipe
In the progressive magazine New Statesman, Luke Hurst points to what he calls "Brand Burnham" as the explanation for the victory in Makerfield.
In an opinion piece, written by Hurst, who is a coordinator for the political Labour movement Mainstream, it is noted that Burnham's offer to voters was political, not just personal:
– He was willing to name the political causes of the cost-of-living crisis affecting people in Makerfield and beyond – deindustrialization, privatization, and austerity – and to propose a package of progressive, but feasible, policies to alleviate them.
Central to Burnham's message to Makerfield voters were public ownership of essential services, property taxes, and electoral reform.
Policies that, according to Hurst, have been avoided by Starmer's Labour government.
BBC's political editorial team also writes that a leadership change could lead to a clearer leftward shift. They list possible major political projects such as:
- stronger public control over water and energy
- greater investment in municipal housing and transport
- large-scale construction of public housing
- reform of social care
- new focus on vocational education and apprenticeships.
Jeremy Corbyn, the party leader Burnham lost to in 2015, tells Sky News that he finds it "very strange" that the upcoming battle for Labour's leadership has contained so little debate on policy.
– All the media are very focused on a debate between personalities, and at no point does any political debate come into it.
Corbyn says he personally likes Burnham, but that his economic strategy accepts "too many of the austerity measures that have been imposed on us, and as far as I can see, it doesn't seem to do anything differently internationally."
– It seems to me that if there is to be a change, there must also be some significant policy changes, said Corbyn, who also suggested that the UK may "be witnessing a coronation of Andy Burnham in a few days."
The people want a contest
A YouGov poll, conducted Saturday among over 5,500 Britons, shows that people believe Burnham should challenge Starmer for the leadership.
And by more than two to one.
The poll also shows that the majority do not believe a leadership change will bring major changes.
Voters were more divided on whether Starmer should fight in a potential leadership contest.
Most voters for the Greens, Reform, and Tories think the prime minister should step down, while Labour and Liberal Democrat voters think he should take on Burnham.
Updated: 21.06.26 at 14:48
