Keir Starmer Resigns: What Happens Next?

**Alastair Campbell** (0:01)
Well, it may not have been a surprise, given that we all expected it to happen, and indeed predicted it on Friday's episode, but it somehow still came as something of a shock, that Keir Starmer, who led the Labour Party to a landslide victory less than two years ago, is now heading for the exit door.
One decade since the Brexit referendum, 10th anniversary tomorrow, his successor, almost certainly Andy Burnham, will be our seventh Prime Minister in that time. The brutal nature of politics was never clearer as he stood outside number 10, listed some of the many changes he's made to Britain, but accepted that his MPs no longer wanted him. And so, fighting to hold back tears as he thanked his wife and their two teenage children, he said he would be gone by September and that he would go with good grace. This afternoon, by election victor, Andy Burnham will take his seat in parliament. So what then? What are the challenges he has to meet to ensure he lasts longer than the growing list of recent predecessors? All that and more in today's special live episode of The Rest Is Politics.
So, Rory, your first reaction to, as I say, something that was both surprising and somehow shocking.

**Rory Stewart** (1:26)
It was, of course, as I'm sure everybody will say, in massive cliches, awful to see yet another prime minister emerge on the steps of Downing Street to resign. I mean, I was there when David Cameron did it, when Theresa May did it. And then, of course, Boris Johnson did it, then Liz Truss did it after, what if it was 47, 48 days, then Rishi Sunak did it.
So there's that, this sort of odd sense that Britain is becoming a country that's spitting through prime ministers that are Belgian or what used to be an Italian race, although the Italians are now hanging on. Second thing I think many of us will feel a sense that of gratitude towards Keir Starmer, a gratitude for the way he conducts it himself, gratitude for his dignity and thinks he did well. But I also think gratitude above all for the fact that he saw the writing on the wall and didn't try to Joe Biden it and hang on to the last moment. But what did you feel? This must be very deep for you as somebody who's right in the heart of this whole story.

**Alastair Campbell** (2:33)
I feel a mix of things and of course I know Keir very well, Fiona and I know Vic, his wife and their kids, and I did feel that sense of brutality. I think it's hard not to feel there is something a little bit unfair.
For example, if you look at a lot of the stuff on social media yesterday, it was basically saying, can't wait to see the back of him, worst prime minister we've ever had. I think that's a very, very hard claim to make when you look at some of the ones that you just mentioned, List Trust probably and Boris Johnson most of all. But the other thing that was happening yesterday is people were pumping out on social media, long, long lists, including one that includes stuff that I'd forgotten about, of the things that the government has done. But the reason why it's particularly brutal, I think, is that ultimately, there's something about Keir Starmer that the MPs have concluded the public are never going to like. Now, what they can't work out, and I think Andy Burnham is almost certainly going to be the next prime minister. I think he's got a lot of qualities. I think he's got a lot of strengths. But he's going to meet all the same challenges, and indeed, they're all going to transfer almost immediately to him. You can already see it in the media, the way that they're starting to turn on him a bit. The social media stuff is starting.
By the way, the other thing I felt, particularly as Steve Bray, the blue-hatted anti-Brexit campaigner, the first half of Keir Starmer's speech was drowned out almost by oath to joy. He was wafting up from Whitehall. Thankfully, it calmed down so that the most important part of the speech in a way was given with a bit of dignity. But I don't think it's a coincidence that we're coming to the 10th anniversary of the Brexit Reverend because I do think that is the point to which I think our politics became virtually unmanageable.
What we've had in the last decade is a succession of Prime Ministers trying to make sense of a politics that isn't really making sense. I think Andy Burnham, if he does come in, he's really got to seize a sense of boldness, doing big things, including things that aren't necessarily expected. I think the devolution agenda, he's made for that. We're going to have much, much more of that. He's going to have to confront the Labour Party with the choices that Keir Starmer failed to persuade them to back, not least in relation to welfare spending time that we need so much more for national security. But I felt a mixture of sadness for him, sadness for his wife and their closest friends, but also a sense of realpolitik. Once the Labour Party decides and then moves as it did on the back of that election result on Friday where everybody you spoke to was saying, it's got to be Andy, it's got to be Andy, Keir's got to go, Keir's got to go. Once that happens, the realpolitik does take over.