British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said on Monday he would resign, promising to do everything he could to see an orderly transfer of power.
Less than two years after he won a landslide election victory that promised to end chaos in British politics, Starmer said he would support whoever replaced him.
“I was told time and time again that my party was finished, that we were consigned to history, that a majority at the general election, let alone a landslide majority, was impossible, but we proved those people wrong, because we changed our party, ripping out the poison of antisemitism, restoring trust on the economy, defence, and national security, and becoming a party that once again stood proudly with, not against, our national flag," Starmer said in his speech.
The threat to Starmer, which had been building for months, increased sharply on Friday when Andy Burnham, the Greater Manchester mayor, decisively won a parliamentary election to return to Westminster, beating a candidate from Nigel Farage's Reform UK party, which has led national opinion polls for more than a year.
That victory gave hope to Labour lawmakers that Burnham, a career politician known for his communication skills, could transform the fortunes of a party that has lost support under Starmer, whose popularity ratings have sunk to the lowest for any British leader.
But the change is not without risk.
Beyond saying that the country needs fundamental change and to bring down the cost of living, Burnham has yet to make clear his approach to foreign affairs, the economy and defense.
Like Starmer, he could find he has little room to maneuver, hemmed in by bond market investors opposed to any additional borrowing, and confronted by an angry electorate which believes the country is not working properly.
Britain already has the highest borrowing costs in the Group of Seven wealthy nations due to its high debt and interest payments, years of anemic economic growth, its struggles to cut spending and the need to invest in areas like defense.
Investors spoken to by Reuters were divided over whether Burnham, who said last September that Britain had to get "beyond this thing of being in hock to the bond markets" would respect the need to reassure markets.
He has since said he was misrepresented.
"In our view, a Burnham premiership would inherit a precarious fiscal situation with few tools to deliver meaningful change," economists at Citibank said on Friday.
Starmer had said on Friday he would stand in any formal Labour leadership contest that sought to replace him. But that appeared to change over the weekend.
Whoever replaces Starmer will become Britain's seventh prime minister since the Brexit vote to leave the European Union which took place 10 years ago this week.
That level of turnover - the highest in Britain in nearly two centuries - underlines the struggle of maintaining the support of voters angry at successive failures to improve living standards, public services and tackle illegal immigration.
