LONDON: British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said on Friday he would not walk away, \u200bvowing to fight any challenge from his leading party rival, Andy Burnham, and potentially ushering in a new bout of political instability.<\/p>\n
Burnham, the Greater Manchester mayor, won a decisive victory for Labour to claim a parliamentary seat in northwest England, and has signaled that he will use it to enter any contest to replace Starmer.<\/p>\n
The scale of his victory in Makerfield in northwest England prompted more Labour lawmakers to say Starmer, unpopular and under pressure from the populist Reform UK in surveys, should consider stepping down to enable an orderly handover to Burnham.<\/p>\n
That would mean Britain installing its seventh prime minister in just over a decade, the highest turnover in nearly two centuries \u2014 a reflection of voter anger at successive failures to improve living standards and public services and tackle illegal immigration.<\/p>\n
But Starmer, who led a landslide election victory in 2024, said he \u200cwas \u201cnot going to walk \u200caway,\u201d reeling off a list of actions: closer ties to the EU, stabilizing the economy, and \u200creducing waiting times \u200bin the health service.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf there is a contest … I will stand, and I\u2019ve said repeatedly I\u2019m not going to walk away,\u201d Starmer said in London.<\/p>\n
In a call with Labour staff across the country, he warned of the dangers of a potentially disruptive leadership campaign, urging them to ensure instead that Labour retained the mayoralty of Greater Manchester.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe one thing we\u2019ve got to avoid doing is plunging our party and our country into chaos by turning on each other and tearing apart our party,\u201d he said. \u201cThat has never worked.\u201d<\/p>\n
His resistance to growing Labour calls to step down could mean that the party airs its divisions in public in a leadership contest \u2014 something that undermined the Conservatives, who lost power after changing leaders five times in eight years.<\/p>\n
Burnham, a 56-year-old career politician, took 54.8 percent of the vote to the populist Reform UK candidate\u2019s 34.5 percent, boosting his image <\/p>\n
as someone who could halt the rapid rise of veteran Brexit campaigner Nigel Farage\u2019s party.<\/p>\n
Hours after claiming victory, he set out \u200ba national approach in what lawmakers called a prime ministerial-style address.<\/p>\n
\u201cI \u200cdid talk about the need to change Labour … and we\u2019ve got to now take this moment and answer the challenges that \u200chave been laid down,\u201d he told a crowd of supporters, listing areas that he said needed to be tackled: making life more affordable, reducing utility bills, and driving reindustrialization.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is our last chance to change but we are going to take it … and we are going to lay out a new path for Britain.\u201d<\/p>\n
His victory not only sent him back to parliament, from where he can mount a leadership challenge, but also boosted the hopes of some \u200cworried Labour lawmakers that they can win the next national election, due in 2029.<\/p>\n
Many believe that Starmer, struggling with some of the worst popularity ratings of any British leader, cannot achieve that.<\/p>\n
Polls of Labour party members indicate Burnham would win a formal leadership contest, although some Labour lawmakers hope that process can be avoided.<\/p>\n
Starmer, 63, has repeatedly vowed to fight on, despite scandals, policy U-turns and accusations of indecision, wanting to finish his five-year term by fulfilling his vow to solve some of Britain\u2019s most pressing problems.<\/p>\n
But about a quarter of his lawmakers have urged him to quit since Labour suffered heavy losses in local elections last month, and more were adding their names. Senior colleagues, including the defense and health ministers, have resigned.<\/p>\n
Some Labour lawmakers said the party should give Starmer the weekend to reflect and consider stepping down. A Burnham ally, Labour lawmaker Louise Haigh, told the BBC she hoped \u201cthat Andy and the prime minister can speak over the coming days.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe want to avoid a leadership contest if possible, and we hope that we can agree on a way forward,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Many Labour members of parliament fear losing their seats in the next election, due in 2029, to Farage\u2019s party, which has led opinion polls for more than a year.<\/p>\n
Another of Starmer\u2019s rivals, former health minister Wes Streeting, said \u200bthis week he would force a contest soon unless the prime \u200bminister announced when he would stand down. He said Burnham\u2019s victory was proof that Labour needed to change.<\/p>\n
Party rules require 20 percent of the parliamentary party, or 81 lawmakers, to announce they are backing a single candidate to trigger a leadership challenge.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
LONDON: British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said on Friday he would not walk away, \u200bvowing to fight any challenge from his leading party rival, Andy Burnham, and potentially ushering in a new bout of political instability. Burnham, the Greater Manchester mayor, won a decisive victory for Labour to claim a parliamentary seat in northwest England, …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":99339,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-99327","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99327","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=99327"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99327\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":99345,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99327\/revisions\/99345"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/99339"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=99327"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=99327"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=99327"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}