LONDON, June 24 — Keir Starmer insisted he is “very pleased” that Andy Burnham is back in the Commons today, as the outgoing prime minister faced a humiliating Prime Minister’s Questions session with his own MPs flocking to the man expected to replace him within weeks.
The mechanics here are brutal. Starmer finally announced his departure in an emotional speech on Monday, and today he had to sit through Kemi Badenoch’s mocking dissection of his demise. Flanked by a grim-faced Rachel Reeves, the premier tried to talk up his achievements. The Tory leader shot back: “If it’s all so fantastic why is he resigning?”
Burnham was not in the chamber for the exchanges. He didn’t need to be. Labour MPs have already shown their support, and the political momentum is firmly with the Mayor of Manchester.
Badenoch turned her fire on the Chancellor, noting that Reeves “didn’t even bother to come out into Downing Street to watch the PM deliver his resignation speech. Then she turned up to get a selfie with Andy Burnham.” On closer reading, that’s a pointed signal about where loyalties now lie inside the Labour Party.
The Conservative leader also took aim at Ed Miliband — now tipped by many to become Burnham’s Chancellor. “He was a failed Labour leader, rejected by the electorate, brought back from the wilderness… and when the going got tough, he jumped into bed with the Mayor of Manchester,” Badenoch said. She added a brutal snipe about Miliband running for the leadership against his own brother in 2010: “It’s not the first time he’s betrayed someone close to him, is it?”
Starmer had dodged making a statement to the Commons on the G7 summit, so today’s PMQs was the first time he was grilled on his departure. The catch for the prime minister is that he now presides over a party that has already moved on.
Follow the money, or in this case, the votes. With Burnham expected to take over within weeks, today’s session was less about governing and more about managing a political transition that Starmer himself set in motion on Monday.
