Andy Burnham becomes UK prime minister

Andy Burnham is set to become Britain’s new prime minister Monday, taking office after Keir Starmer agreed to step down following a series of election defeats, policy U-turns and scandals.

Burnham, 56, will be appointed unchallenged as leader of the governing Labour Party, making him the United Kingdom’s seventh prime minister in a decade and its fifth in four years. The change comes just two years after Starmer led Labour to a landslide election victory, Al Jazeera reported.

In the United Kingdom, a ruling party can replace its leader during a parliamentary term without a national vote. Because Labour remains in government, Burnham’s takeover of the party leadership also puts him in line to become prime minister.

Burnham, who has been dubbed the “King of the North,” has promised sweeping political change. In a speech Friday, he said he wanted “to pass power from the authorities to ordinary people” and “to build a new politics — the country is crying out for it.”

“Let’s have the courage to fix the big things that politics has neglected,” he said, pledging to reverse what he called the “wrong turns” Britain began to take in the 1980s, when “political power was centralized, and economic power was privatized.”

His first day will begin with the formal transfer of power. Starmer is expected to deliver a farewell speech outside No. 10 Downing Street before traveling to Buckingham Palace to offer his resignation to King Charles III. Burnham will then arrive at the palace, where the king will ask him to form a government.

The ceremony is traditionally known as “kissing hands,” though new prime ministers are no longer expected to do so. After the audience with the king, Burnham is expected to return to Downing Street and deliver a speech setting out his priorities.

Those priorities are already extensive. Burnham inherits a government facing Britain’s cost-of-living crisis, an ailing National Health Service, struggling public services and contentious debates over immigration and Europe. Al Jazeera reported that he has promised to focus more clearly on issues people care about, including living costs and poorly performing services.

He also takes office as Labour faces pressure from Reform UK, the hard-right party led by Nigel Farage, an ally of Donald Trump. NBC News reported that Reform UK tops the polls.

Burnham’s transition has not been free of friction. NBC News reported that he already faces infighting over his cabinet selections, even before entering Downing Street.

For Starmer, the handover marks a rapid fall from the height of Labour’s election victory. For Burnham, it begins a premiership shaped immediately by economic strain, public service pressures and a pledge to change how power is exercised in Britain.