Andy Burnham took office as British prime minister on Monday, appointed by King Charles III within minutes of the monarch accepting Keir Starmer’s resignation, and became the country’s seventh leader in a decade.
Speaking outside 10 Downing Street, Starmer said: “I thank the British people for the opportunity to serve. I go with good grace, I go with a smile, and I go proud of everything that we have achieved.” Of his successor, he said: “I now pass the baton to Andy Burnham, I wish him every success. He has my full support.”
Burnham, 56, until recently the mayor of Greater Manchester, cast his appointment as “a circuit-breaker” for a country whose path has bent wrong since the 1980s, and promised a 10-year plan, cost-of-living help, an end to street sleeping, re-industrialisation and putting “life’s essentials back under public control”. Britain, he said, must show “that we can regain our stability”, and he vowed to make politics “less toxic”.
His first-day cabinet choices surprised Westminster. John Healey, who quit as defence secretary weeks ago in a dispute over departmental funding plans, becomes chancellor in place of Rachel Reeves. David Lammy leaves, Ed Miliband switches to the foreign office, Yvette Cooper moves to health, and Shabana Mahmood stays as home secretary. The first full cabinet session comes Tuesday.
Burnham had been elected Labour leader unopposed on Friday, with nominations from 379 of Labour’s 403 lawmakers in the 650-seat Commons. Starmer, who won a landslide in 2024 after 14 years of Conservative rule, bowed out after May local elections in which Labour shed more than 1,000 councillors. The next general election need not come before 2029. Burnham’s office said he had already spoken to US president Donald Trump, underlining “his commitment to defense and security”.
The new prime minister’s route to power ran through Leigh, the Greater Manchester constituency he won in 2001 and kept for 16 years, ministerial posts under Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, two failed leadership bids against Ed Miliband and Jeremy Corbyn, and the Manchester mayoralty he captured in 2017. Nicknamed “the King of the North”, he sits on the centre left of Labour and describes himself as a socialist.
Sources
- Andy Burnham becomes UK's next prime minister after meeting with King Charles III – ABC News
- Andy Burnham becomes the UK's seventh prime minister in a decade after Starmer resigns – Newsday
