Flash: Keir Starmer resigns as British Prime Minister
Posted by Jim on June 22, 2026
IRISH REPUBLICAN NEWS
Published: Monday, June 22, 2026
Keir Starmer has resigned as British Prime Minister and leader of the British Labour Party.
In a statement outside 10 Downing Street, Starmer said he will do everything he can to ensure an orderly handover of power, and will give his successor his full support.
He claimed every decision he made in office has been about “putting the country I love first”.
Starmer said that after leaving the “biggest job in the country” he will spend more time on “the most important job”.
“Being the best husband I can, to my fantastic wife Vic, who has been a rock by my side through good times and bad, and being the best dad that I can to my beautiful children, who are my pride and joy.”
Starmer led Labour to a landslide victory at the 2024 general election, with the largest Labour majority in a generation, ending fourteen years of Conservative government and becoming the first Labour prime minister since Gordon Brown.
But he will go down in history as statistically the worst ever British Prime Minister, his decline in public support making him the most unpopular since records began.
His reign was bracketed by two shocking acts which exposed the puppet-like nature of his administration — the appointment of his US ambassador, Peter Mandelson, for whom it emerged he had breached security protocols, despite being aware of his ties to an Israeli-run ‘elite’ paedophile ring.
The pre-announcement yesterday of his resignation by US President Donald Trump was a telling humiliation, the former host of ‘The Apprentice’ TV show appearing to deliver the final blow by offering his own obituary on Mandelson’s premiership.
In fact, Starmer’s resignation had been predicted since Labour’s disastrous result in the Gorton and Denton by-election in February, but it was another by-election that would ensure his departure – in Makerfield last week, his likely successor, Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham, was comfortably elected as an MP to allow him to take over the helm as British Prime Minister.
Long a supporter, Starmer’s unwavering defence of Israel was the primary reason for his downfall. His overt defence of the deliberate starvation of Palestinians, as well as his more secretive provision of RAF support for the physical bombardment of Gaza, will be examined in future investigations into the genocide. His imprisonment of Palestine activists as ‘terrorists’ has also wrecked British civil liberties and sharply contrasted with his previous employment as a human rights lawyer and barrister.
However, the collapse in support for his party has allowed for a major transformation in British politics and may offer his most enduring legacy. It has seen the rise of the Green Party to become the main contender on the left for the formation of the next British government, and has driven support for Scottish and Welsh nationalism to once again place the future of the union at the heart of British politics.
Sinn Féin has not yet commented on the development, but in a social media post, Matthew O’Toole, SDLP leader of the opposition at Stormont, noted there will have been seven British Prime Ministers in less than a decade.
“The UK is now a poorer and less stable country, which means conversations about constitutional change are not simply nationalist aspiration, but an understandable reaction to the real destabilisation of the British state,” he wrote.
“That instability and economic underperdormance affects so much that it is natural to explore change.”