LONDON (AP) — U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer is facing a career-defining decision: step down or fight a possible challenge from Labour Party rival Andy Burnham.
Starmer has publicly vowed to stay in office, but pressure is building as more and more Labour Party colleagues conclude that his time is up. Expectation is growing that he will announce a timetable for his resignation as soon as Monday. That’s the day Burnham will be sworn in as a lawmaker in the House of Commons after winning a special election last week.
Business Secretary Peter Kyle said Sunday that Starmer is “making time to reflect on the political realities, challenges and opportunities that he finds himself in.”
“I know he is a prime minister who always puts his country first,” Kyle told the BBC, though he said that reports that Starmer will resign are “speculation.”
Starmer is spending the weekend at Chequers, the country mansion used by prime ministers, with his family. He gave no public hint about his decision, but sent a Father’s Day message on social media.
“Being a dad is my greatest joy. Today, I’m thinking about my dad, and the father I am to my children because of him,” he wrote on X.
U.S. President Donald Trump weighed in even before an announcement, linking Starmer’s potential exit to two of his recurring bugbears: immigration and renewable energy.
“Keir Starmer will resign as Prime Minister of The United Kingdom. He failed badly on two very important subjects- IMMIGRATION AND ENERGY (OPEN NORTH SEA OIL!). I wish him well! President DJT,” Trump posted on his Truth Social network.
It was unclear whether Trump was responding to media reports about Starmer’s plans. The two leaders haven’t spoken over the weekend.
Starmer’s initially warm relationship with the president has soured in recent months over issues including the Iran war, which the U.K. didn’t join.
If Starmer quits, he will be the sixth prime minister to leave office in the past 10 years, an extraordinary rate of churn for the United Kingdom.
Discontent with the prime minister has been building for months, with Labour lawmakers desperate to reverse the government’s decline in popularity since Starmer led the center-left party to a landslide election victory in July 2024.
He has struggled to deliver promised economic growth, repair tattered public services and ease the cost of living, and has been hamstrung by repeated missteps, including his decision to appoint Peter Mandelson, a scandal-tarnished friend of Jeffrey Epstein, as the U.K. ambassador to the United States.
Labour is losing liberal voters to the growing Green Party and facing a rising Reform UK, the Nigel Farage -led anti-immigration party that consistently leads in nationwide opinion polls.
Burnham, until this week the popular mayor of Greater Manchester, decisively won the seat of Makerfield in northwestern England in a special election held Thursday. He took almost 55% of the 45,510 votes cast, over 9,000 more than the Reform UK runner-up.
Now that Burnham is becoming a lawmaker, he’s in a position to challenge Starmer for leadership of the Labour Party. Burnham’s acceptance speech left no doubt that he wants to lead both the party and the country.
“Everyone knows that politics isn’t working,” he said. “Everyone can feel that the country isn’t where it should be. Tonight could, just could, be the turning point.”
It’s unclear whether Burnham would face a coronation or a challenge, if Starmer steps aside. Wes Streeting, who resigned as health secretary last month to protest Starmer’s leadership, has said that he will run in a contest if there is one.
Starmer congratulated Burnham on Friday, but insisted that he would fight any attempt to oust him.
“I will run, I will stand,” if there is a Labour leadership contest, Starmer said. “I’ve said repeatedly I’m not going to walk away from that.”
But Charlie Falconer, a senior Labour member of the House of Lords, said Saturday that Starmer has “absolutely no authority” left.
“There should be an agreed transition process in which Andy and Keir cooperate as to when the handover should take place,” he told the BBC.

For more than three weeks protesters have gathered peacefully in Tirana, the capital of Albania, cheered on by Americans who see them as plucky warriors against President Trump, Israel and the greed of the “1 percent.”
The protests were set off by public outrage over violent security guards at the site of a planned coastal development financed by Mr. Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner and investors from the Gulf with an estimated cost of more than $4 billion.
For Americans on the left, Albanians are resisting Trump family corruption and so-called billionaire vultures. Conspiracy theorists on the right are embracing a different theory; they see pushback against Israel and supposed plans for what they call a “new Epstein island” off the southern coast of one of Europe’s poorest nations.
Albanians actually taking part in the protests, however, beg to differ.
“Nobody here is protesting against Trump or Israel,” said Elis Kodra, 33, who turned up with his girlfriend for a recent rally with several thousand people outside the office of Albania’s beleaguered prime minister, Edi Rama.

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Texas Democratic Senate nominee James Talarico, who has built a reputation for his anti-corporate rhetoric and criticism of tech, reportedly spent mid-April traveling around the San Francisco Bay Area soliciting donations from deep-pocketed tech executives.
Talarico attended at least four California fundraisers organized by major Democratic fundraisers linked to the tech industry in April, according to invitations obtained by Politico and a source interviewed by the outlet.
The Democratic Senate hopeful criticizes the tech industry on his campaign website, accusing it of profiting off “predatory algorithms” that amplify extremism and promising to protect workers against “intrusive AI surveillance.”
The fundraisers took place in Palo Alto, the Mission District of San Francisco, Oakland and Marin County, according to Politico. Among the attendees were venture capitalists, including at least one who advises AI start-ups, wealthy Democratic donors and political staffers.
TALARICO TOUTS TEXAS ROOTS AS OUT-OF-STATE CASH POWERS SENATE CAMPAIGN
Talarico’s proximity to wealth creates tension with how he has presented himself on the campaign trail.
He has stated that “the biggest divide in this country is not left vs. right. It’s top vs. bottom,” argued that the “people at the top work so hard to keep us angry and divided because our unity is a threat to their wealth and power,” characterized lawmakers that take donations from “megadonors” as “puppet politicians,” accused “billionaires are waging war on the rest of us” and expressed a strong desire to hold corporations accountable.
He has also vowed not to accept corporate PAC funding, though he has taken money from corporate executives, the individuals who typically fund and control corporate PACs.
PROGRESSIVE TALARICO KNIFES BIDEN’S OPEN BORDER, TRIES MODERATING STANCE ON KEY ISSUES IN TEXAS SENATE RACE
While Talarico has raised over $40 million, the second most of any Senate candidate this cycle, the vast majority of that has come from small-dollar donors. Additionally, Texas Republican Senate nominee Ken Paxton, the state’s attorney general, has a history of accepting large-dollar donations, though he hasn’t taken a stance against the wealthy in the same way as Talarico.
“The only way to get big money out of our politics is to vote out politicians like Ken Paxton who want corporations and billionaires to decide our elections, not Texans,” Talarico campaign spokesman JT Ennis told Fox News Digital.
“James is the only candidate who’s outlined a comprehensive agenda to ban super PACs, ban corporate PACs, ban congressional stock trading and tax billionaires so we can fix this broken, corrupt political system. If anyone supports taxing billionaires more and limiting big money’s influence on our politics, they’re welcome to help defeat politicians like Ken Paxton, who rake in millions of dollars from special interests then enrich wealthy donors while working Texans struggle.”
Paxton campaign spokesperson Madison Cercy told Politico the fundraisers are “just another chapter in James Talarico’s saga of lying and hypocrisy as he runs a flip-flopping campaign across the state of Texas.”
ABBOTT SPOTLIGHTS NO-SHOW TALARICO, LAUNCHING TEXAS-SIZED CRIME CRACKDOWN
Fox News Digital previously reported that Talarico is far more reliant on out-of-state donors than Paxton, a trend common among Democrats challenging Republicans in swing states.
Democrats have sought to flip Texas blue for decades, often spending large sums of money in ill-fated attempts to dethrone Republican gubernatorial and senatorial incumbents. Some in the party feel that 2026 could be different from their past failures in the Lone Star.
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Talarico’s open Christian faith, for one, is seen as something that could provide him with cross-party appeal. That, combined with his strong fundraising numbers, tendency to generate viral clips and an unpopular Republican in the White House, could propel Talarico to an upset victory.
In any case, the race for Senate in Texas is shaping up to be an expensive one. One Democratic fundraiser projected that the contest could cost north of half a billion dollars across all sides.

There is exasperation in the voice of a long time Labour adviser. But as every hour passes, it is more likely the UK will soon have its seventh prime minister in 10 years.
Talk of Sir Keir Starmer fighting is fading, his exit seems more likely as the weekend goes on. The prime minister is at his country retreat, Chequers, spending time with his wife.
The reasons for Labour to switch leader are compelling. Andy Burnham looks like a winner. He has shown he can beat Reform, who until this moment have seemed a deadly threat to Labour. He is popular in the country, compared to most politicians at least. There are swathes of MPs eager to back him and his brand, believing he’s the one who can improve the party’s grim position.
He’s been successful and highly visible as the Mayor of Greater Manchester, known just as Andy everywhere he goes, one of his backers tells me.
He’s no stranger to government either, having served as health secretary, culture secretary, and as a Treasury minister years ago. And most of all, Burnham’s shown in the Makerfield by-election campaign he has that valuable talent in politics – a capacity to make people feel good.
There have been more than a dozen big U-turns. Resignations. The mess over Lord Mandelson’s job. And after dreadful election results in 2025 and 2026, wipe-out in Wales. Starmer has seemed like a loser to many in his own party.
It is not even two years since his massive win at the general election. But the political perception that he has an appeal to voters? Brutally, that’s long gone.
On Friday, the prime minister was still arguing to the cameras that he would fight if Burnham challenges him, refusing to acknowledge that is not an “if”, it’s a “when”.
Even privately some of his backers were still adamant he would run, talking of donors who’ve given money to run a campaign and office spaces being found.
One source claimed his conversations with cabinet ministers in the afternoon were not about whether he had the authority to stay in office, but the arguments he’d make in a leadership race.
Several sources told me Starmer really does believe he could beat Burnham in a leadership contest, and concluded that a fortnight ago after watching him on BBC Question Time on a Thursday, then failing to explain the borrowing and spending rules in a Newsnight interview on the Friday.
A government insider said: “On Saturday he phoned his closest allies and said, ‘I’m sure I could win.'”
But the widespread assumption this weekend in the party is that Burnham would beat him hands down, another government source said: “It’s nuts” to imagine the PM could come out on top.
An increasing number of ministers, previously loyal to Starmer now think it’s time, as one cabinet source told me, they “wouldn’t want the prime minister to humiliate himself” in a race.
The chances of him staying to fight are diminishing. But what is still a mystery this weekend is exactly how Starmer will respond.
“It’s very hard for people to know a person who doesn’t know themselves,” said another government insider.
Not just for what’s happening now, but how they see he’s chipped in unhelpfully from the sidelines since the day Starmer moved into No 10.
One Starmer ally told me: “This is not a chase, these are big decisions about who is going to run the country – it can’t be rushed 20 minutes after a by-election.”
The former minister, Jess Philips, told the BBC this morning that Burnham or any other candidates must be “tested with the rigour of at least some manner of contest”.
There’s also concern about the precedent of ousting a leader off the back of a by-election, the votes from a group of only 77,000 people deciding everything for the whole country. Burnham would have no mandate from the public, without a general election.
And what happens if Labour’s standing didn’t improve? Might those calling for a removal van for the current prime minister do the same again? What if there were another by-election when Prime Minister Burnham was in trouble?
Is it mad to imagine that other big names from the past – David Miliband or, even Ed Balls – might abandon New York and the breakfast TV sofa, and fancy a comeback too?
Just as there are compelling reasons for Labour to make the switch, there are serious risks. There may yet be a contest, and another candidate aside from Wes Streeting could find the 81 names to run.
But with 100 MPs now calling for Starmer to go and support for him to stay in the cabinet fading, one senior party figure predicts “he’ll realise this weekend that he can’t keep the Cabinet and ministers together and will have to go”.
Labour has found itself in a strange situation it promised you it would never reach – en route to removing its first prime minister to win in 14 years. And congratulating themselves for winning a seat they already held, so they can get rid of the man whose campaigning won them all the seats they have.
The vow not to repeat the Conservatives’ habit of switching prime minister might be the last political promise Starmer breaks.
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ASHTON-IN-MAKERFIELD, England (AP) — Labour’s Andy Burnham, the popular mayor of Greater Manchester, won a special election for a seat in Parliament and signaled Friday that he will use it to challenge embattled Prime Minister Keir Starmer for leadership of the country.
Starmer said he planned to fight for his job, but a growing number of colleagues urged him to make a dignified exit.
“There is this sense of collective movement,” former Labour Deputy Leader Harriet Harman told the “Electoral Dysfunction” podcast. “Andy Burnham is going to become prime minister. Keir Starmer is going to be leaving office.”
Burnham decisively won the seat of Makerfield in northwestern England over Rob Kenyon of the anti-immigration party Reform UK. The result cements the status of Burnham, a 56-year-old politician nicknamed the King of the North, as the top contender to replace Starmer as leader of the Labour Party and the country. Burnham won almost 55% of the 45,510 votes cast for a field of more than a dozen candidates, over 9,000 more than runner-up Kenyon.
Burnham’s acceptance speech left no doubt that he wants to lead the country, and not just be one of the more than 400 Labour lawmakers in the 650-seat House of Commons.
“Everyone knows that politics isn’t working,” he said. “Everyone can feel that the country isn’t where it should be. Tonight could, just could, be the turning point.”
Starmer congratulated Burnham, writing on X that voters “chose Labour’s campaign of hope and optimism over division and hate.”
But the prime minister insisted he would fight any attempt to oust him.
“I will run, I will stand,” if there is a Labour leadership contest, Starmer said. “I’ve said repeatedly I’m not going to walk away from that.”
Burnham says he’s the candidate of change
Burnham has led Manchester since 2017, overseeing rapid regeneration for the city where the Industrial Revolution was forged. He is pledging to repeat his signature brand of “Manchesterism” on a national scale.
Burnham said he would work to ensure that “the name Makerfield is forever synonymous with bringing about the change this country needs.”
He told supporters and campaign workers on Friday that “we are going to lay out a new path for Britain.”
“We need an economy that works for everybody, not a few in far-off places from here,” he said. “We have an opportunity to turn the tide, to make the country feel like it’s working again, to make people see that politics can make a positive difference, to make people feel hope again.”
Earlier, in his victory speech, he said Labour had “a final chance to change” and win back voters’ trust.
“But it is a chance now, from this result tonight, to build a new politics based on unity and hope, turning away from the path that takes us to a divided, dark politics of the kind we see in the United States,” he said.
Rob Ford, professor of political science at the University of Manchester, said defeating Reform UK strengthens Burnham’s claim to be Labour’s biggest asset.
“The narrative he can bring is, ‘No one else could have won that seat. I won that. I bring something unique. I bring an ability to renew our appeal,’” Ford said.
Voters in Makerfield, who have been the focus of international media attention during the five-week campaign, were aware their votes carried unusual weight.
“I voted Andy Burnham because I don’t believe Keir Starmer has done a good job,” said Ernest Sherman, 70. “So I voted tactically knowing that Andy Burnham has a chance to replace Starmer. So it will still be Labour, but he will have different views.”
Labour is in power but unpopular
Starmer’s popularity has cratered since he led the center-left Labour Party to a landslide election victory in July 2024.
He has struggled to deliver promised economic growth, repair tattered public services and ease the cost of living, and been hamstrung by repeated missteps, including his decision to appoint Peter Mandelson, a scandal-tarnished friend of Jeffrey Epstein, as the U.K. ambassador to the United States.
Labour is losing liberal voters to the growing Green Party, and facing a rising Reform UK, which consistently leads in nationwide opinion polls. The Nigel Farage -led party has rapidly gained ground in post-industrial northern England areas like Makerfield, some 200 miles (320 kilometers) northwest of London.
Burnham’s resounding victory gives Labour new hope of stopping the Reform tide. Farage acknowledged he was “disappointed, no question about it,” with the result.
Labour’s dismal performance in May’s local elections spurred scores of lawmakers to demand Starmer’s resignation. Wes Streeting resigned as health secretary in May, saying that “where we need vision, we have a vacuum.” Streeting has said he will run in a leadership contest if there is one.
Then Josh Simons, the Labour lawmaker for Makerfield, stepped down to trigger a special election and give Burnham the chance to return to Parliament.
Britain’s parliamentary system allows governing parties to change leaders midterm, with the winner becoming prime minister without the need for a national election. Under Labour rules, a lawmaker can challenge the leader if they have backing from a fifth of the party’s House of Commons lawmakers — a number that stands at 81.
Burnham’s victory piles pressure on Starmer to quit
Burnham will head to London to be sworn in as a lawmaker as soon as Monday. He’s likely to seek a meeting with Starmer to argue that the prime minister should exit gracefully and set a timetable for his departure.
Burnham’s supporters wasted no time in urging Starmer to go. Labour lawmaker Louise Haigh, a Burnham ally, said Starmer should “consider an orderly and managed transition.”
“Andy won’t be doing anything rash or hasty,” she told Sky News. “I’m really hopeful the prime minister and Andy can come to an agreement.”
Starmer insisted on Friday that he was elected on a “mandate for change” and would carry on with it. Earlier this week he suggested that he could offer Burnham a Cabinet post, an idea rebuffed by Burnham’s allies.
Despite his stubborn determination, Starmer could be forced out if several members of the Cabinet tell him the game is up and quit, or threaten to quit, in protest. Tthere could then be a leadership contest, or a coronation, depending on whether other potential candidates think Burnham has an unassailable lead.
“When things begin to slide away from a prime minister, they begin to slide away very, very quickly,” said Tim Bale, professor of politics at Queen Mary University of London.
“Over the weekend there will be all sorts of talks behind closed doors, mainly I suspect people trying to persuade Keir Starmer … that the game is up.”
___
Lawless reported from London. Associated Press writer Danica Kirka contributed to this story.