Pressure mounts on UK PM Starmer to quit after Burnham’s by-election win

SaveSharefacebookxwhatsapp-strokecopylinkBritain's Prime Minister Keir Starmer [Peter Macdiarmid/Pool via AP]By Al Jazeera Staff, AFP and APPublished On 21 Jun 202621 Jun 2026British Prime Minister Keir Starmer is weighing whether to resign within days, according to media reports, amid mounting pressure from his own Labour Party following a decisive by-election win by his rival, Andy Burnham.Expectation is growing that Starmer could announce a resignation timetable as soon as Monday, the same day Burnham is sworn in as a lawmaker after winning Thursday’s vote by a wide margin – a result that has reportedly emboldened Labour figures, including Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper, to call for Starmer to step aside.Recommended Stories list of 4 itemslist 1 of 4Burnham by-election victory raises stakes for Starmerlist 2 of 4‘I prefer Burnham’: Starmer’s future hangs in balance after UK by-electionlist 3 of 4Two men jailed for arson attacks on property linked to UK prime ministerlist 4 of 4Are UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s political days numbered?end of listA resignation would lead to the United Kingdom’s seventh prime minister in a decade, a rapid rate of churn in the country’s modern history.Starmer has been under growing pressure to step down after months of declining popularity, policy missteps and scandals.In February, the premier came under fire when revelations from the Epstein files about Peter Mandelson, whom Starmer appointed as the UK’s ambassador to the US in December 2024, came to light. Burnham, Greater Manchester mayor since 2017, has made clear he intends to challenge to lead the slumping centre-left party, warning in his by-election victory speech that it had a “final chance to change”.If successful, he would become prime minister by default, given that the governing Labour has a huge parliamentary majority.Starmer is deeply unpopular with voters, according to polling.YouGov, a global public opinion and data analytics firm, reports that only 19 percent of British people have a positive opinion of the prime minister, and he ranks as the ninth most popular Labour politician.Starmer has insisted he will fight any attempt to oust him.But the emphatic nature of Burnham’s win in the Makerfield constituency in northwest England, where he nearly doubled Labour’s majority, has increased the internal pressure on Starmer to quit.Business Secretary Peter Kyle said on Sunday that Starmer was “making time to reflect on the political realities, challenges and opportunities that he finds himself in”.“He has been engaging in conversations with a wide, wide range of people,” Kyle told the Sky News broadcaster after having what he said was a “frank” conversation with Starmer on Friday.The Observer newspaper headlined on its cover on Sunday that Starmer was “expected to resign” the following day, while the Sunday Telegraph also reported he was “ready” to go, citing allies of the embattled British leader.The Observer said Starmer would “set out a timetable for his departure”, noting he had been holding weekend talks at Chequers, the countryside retreat for prime ministers. Labour’s drubbing in local and regional polls in England, Scotland and Wales last month intensified the pressure on him.The fallout from the polls saw Makerfield’s previous Labour MP resign to allow Burnham to stand there.Burnham, a former MP and government minister under ex-prime ministers Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, is due to be sworn back into parliament on Monday.From the so-called soft-left wing of Labour, he reinforced his reputation as the party’s most popular figure by easily beating the hard-right populist Reform UK party’s candidate in this week’s by-election.Reform, led by Brexit architect Nigel Farage, had won all of Makerfield’s wards in last month’s local elections.