How UK's Keir Starmer went from election landslide to downfall

By — Jill Lawless, Associated Press Jill Lawless, Associated Press By — Pan Pylas, Associated Press Pan Pylas, Associated Press Leave your feedback Share Copy URL https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/how-uks-keir-starmer-went-from-election-landslide-to-downfall Email Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Pinterest Tumblr Share on Facebook Share on Twitter How UK's Keir Starmer went from election landslide to downfall World Jun 22, 2026 9:57 AM EDT 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. Less than two years later, his term is ending 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 in whose sexual crimes he was not complicit. Educate your inbox Subscribe to Here’s the Deal, our politics newsletter for analysis you won’t find anywhere else. On Monday, Starmer said in an emotional statement that he was stepping down as leader of the governing Labour Party, though he will remain caretaker prime minister until a new Labour leader is chosen in the 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." Promised competence in government betrayed by repeated missteps British Prime Minister Keir Starmer announces the timeline for his resignation, following Andy Burnham's decisive victory last week in the Makerfield by-election, outside 10 Downing Street, in London. Photo by Jack Taylor/Reuters A trouncing for Labour in a midterm set of local and regional elections on May 7 proved the final straw. It triggered a series of government resignations and challenges that look set to sweep former Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham into 10 Downing Street. It's a precipitous downfall from July 4, 2024, when Starmer brought the center-left Labour Party back to power after 14 years, winning 411 of the 650 seats in the House of Commons. Standing outside 10 Downing St. the next day, Starmer pledged to restore "respect to politics" and lead a government of "public service." After the chaos of the last years of Conservative rule, which saw a constant churn of scandal and the toppling of prime ministers Boris Johnson and Liz Truss in quick succession, Starmer promised to lower the temperature and make politics a little bit more boring. Some of the problems that felled him were baked into his victory, which was built on a wide but shallow base of support. Labour won a huge ma