I must admit I feel sorry for Sir Keir Starmer. His Prime Ministership is a tragic story. Less than two years ago, he swept the Labour Party to an astonishing victory. After it collapsed to its worst defeat in a hundred years in 2019, no one believed it would return to power in a single election. Under Starmer’s leadership, it did and with a landslide majority. Yet 23 months later, he’s lost the Labour Party’s support and was compelled to resign. You could say his decline and fall are of Shakespearean proportions.
However, what’s remarkable is how this denouement was handled. First, Labour held his mistakes against the Prime Minister. There were many of them. Scrapping the winter fuel allowance for the elderly was the first. The awful misjudgment of appointing Peter Mandelson and the refusal to accept its implications and consequences are the most recent. But when was the last time any party in India held its Prime Minister similarly to account? It didn’t happen with Jawaharlal Nehru after the Chinese war in 1962. Nor with Narendra Modi after demonetisation in 2016. British politics can be brutal, and it certainly was on this occasion.
Secondly, Starmer resigned in public. Not behind closed doors. Not with feeble excuses for doing so. Addressing the nation from a podium outside 10 Downing Street, he unreservedly accepted what his party was telling him. That he was not the man to lead them into the next election. And he gracefully and swiftly stepped aside.
Equally remarkable is how Labour has found the man most likely to replace Starmer. He wasn’t even a member of Parliament. He needed to win a by-election to become eligible. Clearly, no one in the existing legislature party was considered a suitable replacement. And there was no hesitation in reaching out beyond its confines to find the next Prime Minister.
If you want, you could compare this to HD Deve Gowda’s ascension in 1996. But, in fact, the two are very different. Andy Burnham was chosen because of his outstanding qualities – his success as Mayor of Greater Manchester, his popularity, his charm and the fact that he so convincingly pushed Reform into second position in the recent Makerfield election. Deve Gowda, on the other hand, was chosen by senior politicians deciding behind closed doors. No one even found out why.
There’s another similarity between Andy Burnham and Deve Gowda and, equally importantly, another difference as well. In 1996, we knew very little of what Deve Gowda stood for. In 2026, Andy Burnham’s national policies are unknown. Where does he stand on the Russia-Ukraine war? On the crisis in the Middle East? On the European question? How will he tackle immigration? Indeed, how well does he know Labour MPs, the majority of whom were elected after he stopped being one in 2016? Similar questions could have been asked of Deve Gowda thirty years ago.
However, the difference between them is more important. As Prime Minister of Britain, Burnham’s views and policies will be paramount. He will have the power to get his way. His party’s overwhelming majority will stand by him. Deve Gowda, on the other hand, was a creature of closed-door politics, never free to act as he wanted. Which is why what he stood for didn’t matter as much.
But is there a deeper malaise affecting British politics? Many would have thought that was also true of India when coalition governments held sway in Delhi. Burnham will be Britain’s seventh Prime Minister in ten years. During that decade, the United Kingdom has seen ten home secretaries, nine foreign secretaries and eight chancellors of the exchequer. Such a rapid turnover suggests instability and fragility. But wasn’t that true of the Deve Gowda and Gujral governments as well?
The interesting question is, will Burnham serve out the remaining three years of Labour’s five-year tenure? Neither Deve Gowda nor Gujral did. And can he revive his party’s fortunes in the face of the challenge from Reform and Restore on the right and the Greens on the radical left? Unlike the Conservatives, Labour has only once changed Prime Ministers mid-stream. The Tories have done it repeatedly. It’s unlikely to risk a second succession before the next elections. Burnham, even if his policies don’t captivate his party or the country, can be confident of leading Labour into the next election.
But can he win it? In the Makerfield by-election, he pushed Reform to a poor second, even though six weeks earlier the party had outshone Labour in the local elections. But Burnham is a Lancashire lad. That advantage will be missing when he campaigns as Prime Minister in 2029.
Finally, the British story reflects the fact that politics is often a gamble. Starmer wagered and, ultimately, lost. The dice have fallen in Burnham’s favour. The game is his to win. He could, but there’s no guarantee he will. That’s the beauty but also the unpredictability of politics.
Karan Thapar is President, Infotainment Television