Former British Prime Minister Keir Starmer announced that he would step down as MP and focus on “international affairs” among other areas, even as his successor Andy Burnham faced lawmakers for the first time in the House of Commons since ousting Mr. Starmer from office in July.

Mr. Starmer, who was Prime Minister for just over two years and an MP for 11 years, represents the central London constituency of Holborn & St. Pancras. In a resignation announcement published on social media, Mr. Starmer said he would now focus on other issues such as international affairs, including defence, security, trade and technology. A former public prosecutor, he said that he would also work to prevent violence against women and girls.

Mr. Starmer said he supported Mr. Burnham and added that he would also back whoever Labour chose as his successor in Parliament, ahead of a by-election for his constituency.

Andy Burnham took another significant step on Monday (July 13, 2026) towards becoming Britain’s next prime minister, netting additional Labour MPs’ nominations to give him an unassailable lead in the ruling party’s leadership contest.

The veteran politician, who has served as Greater Manchester mayor for nearly a decade, is the only Labour Member of Parliament to publicly declare themselves a candidate to replace outgoing Prime Minister Keir Starmer.

Mr. Starmer announced he was quitting last month, bowing to months of internal pressure to resign after a series of scandals, missteps and policy U-turns.

Mr. Burnham, 56, is now all but certain to become Labour’s next leader later this week and the country’s new prime minister next week, after the party confirmed the latest votes in what has become a coronation.

After receiving the votes of 322 of 403 Labour MPs on the first day of nominations on July 9, he had gained an extra 27 nominations by Monday afternoon, according to Labour’s public tally.

The 349 nominations now secured in total means it would be impossible for any other candidate to get the 81 endorsements needed to challenge for the Labour leadership.

Nominations close on Thursday. In the absence of a contest, Mr. Burnham will be crowned Labour leader — and prime minister in waiting — at a special conference the following day.

He would then replace Mr. Starmer at 10 Downing Street next Monday (July 20), shortly after meeting King Charles III for formal confirmation he will become Britain’s seventh prime minister in a decade.

Britain’s caretaker Prime Minister, Keir Starmer, on Tuesday unveiled a major defence spending plan with a focus on boosting the country’s drone warfare capabilities as his leadership legacy.

In one of his final big-ticket policy interventions after he announced his resignation last week, Mr. Starmer said the ‘Defence Investment Plan’ will be backed by £298 billion of investment across the next four years.

He also tabled £15 billion of additional spending in the wake of criticism from within his Cabinet over inadequate funds to ensure the UK was fully equipped to fight modern-day wars with cutting-edge abilities.

“This record investment puts the security of the British public first, transforming our armed forces and giving them the funding and equipment they need to fight and defend our nation,” said Mr. Starmer.

“The world is a more dangerous and volatile place, so it is only right we are boosting the number of troops on the ground, rebuilding ammunition stockpiles and investing in cutting-edge technology to ensure we outpace our adversaries for generations to come,” he said.

The outgoing leader said the U.K.’s defence spending was “on track” with an increase to 2.7% of GDP, against a backdrop of US President Donald Trump demanding members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) spend 5% of GDP on defence by 2035.

According to a Downing Street statement, over 5 billion pounds for the next four years will fund a drone transformation for the UK.’s armed forces.

“As part of this, £650 million will deliver inexpensive expendable autonomous systems, including drones and uncrewed ground vehicles, to rapidly enhance the lethality of the Army, Commando Force and Special Forces,” it stated.

More than £8 billion is earmarked for the Global Combat Air Programme (GCAP) over the next four years, which is building a “next-generation stealth fighter jet for the Royal Air Force (RAF)” alongside Japan and Italy.   “I have boosted defence spending to the highest level since the Cold War – and today’s Defence Investment Plan goes further still, committing almost £300 billion over this Parliament to transform our armed forces,” said U.K. Chancellor Rachel Reeves, who is also expected to be shuffled out of the Cabinet when a new leader replaces Mr. Starmer by mid-July.

“By choosing to embrace new technology, I am equipping our forces with the autonomous systems which will give them the edge. This extra money and these choices send a clear signal to our allies and our adversaries alike: Britain is stepping up on security,” added Defence Secretary Dan Jarvis.

The ‘Defence Investment Plan’ is expected to create around 60,000 extra direct and indirect U.K. industry jobs by the end of the decade.

It was accompanied by the announcement of a new £50-billion defence export facility established by U.K. Export Finance to support British defence firms to win contracts across the globe.

This will support British defence companies of all sizes and strengthen the UK’s competitiveness in a rapidly growing market, the U.K.’s Ministry of Defence (MoD) noted.

Around £115 million has been set aside to raise the U.K.’s defences against threats from artificial intelligence (AI), including using AI to improve biosecurity and mitigate risks posed by autonomous AI agents.

(This article is part of the View From India newsletter curated by The Hindu’s foreign affairs experts. To get the newsletter in your inbox every Monday, subscribe here.)

Six Prime Ministers in 10 years, that is Britain’s reality, amid persisting political turbulence, an economy under strain, and a sharply polarised society. When Keir Starmer resigned on June 22, 2026, it came hardly as a surprise. Tacking further to the centre, he found himself and his party in a position where a large constituency of its supporters were disillusioned and frustrated.  

Our London Correspondent Sriram Lakshman tracked the development closely. “Speaking outside No. 10 Downing Street on Monday, the Prime Minister said he had inherited a Labour Party that was “politically, financially, and morally bankrupt”. He spoke of leading the party in a landslide victory in 2024 and highlighted his record, citing growth in real wages, the fastest economic growth in the G7, reduced wait-times for medical appointments, a ban on social media for under-16s, trade deals and mending fences with the European Union,” he wrote. 

In this analysis, Sriram Lakshman notes that Mr. Starmer’s political fate was all but sealed when Labour’s ‘King of the North’, former mayor of Greater Manchester, Andy Burnham won a seat in Westminster (the U.K.’s Parliament) last week, after winning a by-election. 

The Hindu’s editorial on the resignation said Mr. Starmer’s “uncharismatic, technocratic centrism failed to withstand the rapid changes shaping British politics at a time when far-right parties were surging across continental Europe”. While the country’s economy saw incremental gains, Mr. Starmer “proved largely ineffective in addressing the economic anxieties of the working-class communities that delivered his majority, or the cultural grievances Reform UK had been amplifying,” it contended. Mr. Burnham, expected to be elected the next Prime Minister, “should recognise that the Starmerite centrism is unlikely to withstand the onslaught of a far-right cultural politics entrenched in English nationalism. He must unite a fractious party around a progressive economic and foreign policy agenda and build a government that works for all while standing firmly on the right side of global issues,” it further noted.

Top 5 stories we are reading this week

1. War on Iran | The story of a shipwrecked hegemon – The war the U.S. and Israel launched has come to a fragile pause with a preliminary agreement between Washington and Tehran, but it has already diminished America’s presence in the region, writes Stanly Johny in The Hindu Profiles.

2. PACOM, the deeper meaning behind a dropped prefix – The U.S.’s reversion from INDOPACOM to PACOM suggests that its regional shifts run deeper than a simple name change, writes Suhasini Haidar.

3. Wang Yi calls for India, China to accelerate resumption of stalled dialogue mechanisms – A lengthier Chinese readout of the talks between NSA Ajit Doval and China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi said that the Chinese leader noted that “India is an important neighbour of China, Ananth Krishnan reports.

4. Why is Sri Lanka’s dengue outbreak straining its public health sector? 

5. July opens the biggest chapter in India-U.K. trade relations –  The U.K.-India Free Trade Agreement, the ‘gold standard of modern trade deals’, comes into force on July 15, writes Harjinder Kang, His Majesty’s Trade Commissioner for South Asia and the British Deputy High Commissioner for western India.

Outgoing U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer pledged Tuesday(June 23, 2026) to make the transition of power “as easy as possible”, as two Labour lawmakers considered whether to challenge frontrunner Andy Burnham amid concern about a coronation.

Mr. Starmer, who announced on Monday (June 22, 2026) he was stepping down after losing the support of his own MPs, has authorised so-called access talks with prospective successors to begin “as soon as possible,” Downing Street said.

The PM, in office for almost two years, told his senior Ministerial team during their weekly meeting that he wanted an “orderly” handover and whoever replaces him “to succeed”.

“The Prime Minister said he would seek to make the transition as easy as possible, giving his full support to whoever followed in his footsteps,” a government readout of the meeting said.

Labour veteran Mr. Burnham (56) is the overwhelming favourite to replace Mr. Starmer, despite only becoming eligible for the top job after winning a parliamentary by-election last Thursday.

The ex-Manchester Mayor was clapped and cheered as some 200 Labour MPs welcomed him back to parliament after a nine-year absence for his swearing in on Monday (June 22, 2026), hours after Mr. Starmer tendered his resignation.

Mr. Starmer’s official spokesman told reporters that meetings between Mr. Burnham’s team and senior civil servants could begin before nominations to become Labour leader open on July 9.

Nominations close on July 16 and Burnham could be in 10 Downing Street by the following day if he is unchallenged.

U.K.’s ‘best interests’

Former armed forces Minister Al Carns told an event Tuesday (June 23, 2026) that he wanted to hear Mr. Burnham’s “vision” for the country before deciding whether or not to stand.

“We’ll see where we go from there,” he added.

U.K. media reported that government minister Darren Jones was being encouraged to run by some MPs.

A person close to Jones told AFP that he was keeping his options open until Mr. Burnham lays out more detailed plans for government, particularly on the economy, but that he considered a run “very unlikely”.

Mr. Burnham is due to begin setting out his policy platform next week with a speech on his economic plans.

Government Minister Nick Thomas-Symonds echoed the views of many Labour lawmakers on Tuesday (June 23, 2026) when he told Sky News that a “swift transition” was in “the best interests of the country”.

A contest would last for several weeks and could be bitterly divisive, but some MPs insist forcing Mr. Burnham to win a contest would add legitimacy to his premiership since he would have become prime minister without winning a general election.

The Labour party won a landslide victory at the July 2024 general election and is the biggest party in parliament, meaning its leader automatically has the right to be prime minister.

‘Unity now’

Labour MP John Slinger told BBC radio that the public would think “we’d slightly lost our minds if we didn’t go through a process where we subject people who aspire to the highest office in the land to completely normal scrutiny”.

Fellow backbencher Nadia Whittome also called for a contest, telling the BBC that “candidates setting out their stall transparently” would make Labour and the government “stronger”.

Mr. Burnham’s path to Number 10 looks clear after his nearest rival for the top job, Wes Streeting, announced on Monday (June 22, 2026) he would not compete for the top job.

Any challenger would likely find it difficult to secure the support of the 81 of Labour’s 403 MPs needed to join a race.

“Andy has such a head of steam it would be quixotic,” one Labour MP, who asked not to be named, told AFP, adding that a contest would be “hugely expensive and time-consuming”.

“We need unity now,” he said.

 British ​Prime ⁠Minster Keir Starmer is expected to resign on ‌Monday and set out ‌a timetable for ‌his ⁠departure, the Observer ⁠newspaper reported on Saturday (June 20, 2026).

The newspaper said Mr. Starmer ​had ‌reached the conclusion that his position was no longer tenable ‌after speaking ​to cabinet minister, advisers, donors and ⁠trade union leaders.

The report said Mr. ‌Starmer was discussing the matter with his wife at his Chequers country residence ‌before making a final decision, ​but that senior Labour figures ⁠expected a clear statement ⁠on his future as early ‌as Monday (June 22, 2026).

Former Army officer Dan Jarvis was on Thursday (June 11, 2026) named Britain’s new Defence Minister, hours after John Healey quit, accusing the government of failing to commit enough money to protect the country.

Mr. Jarvis was a junior Minister for Security within the Home Office in embattled Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s Labour government.

Mr. Healey’s shock resignation weakens Mr. Starmer’s authority a week before a by-election that could prompt a bid to replace the Prime Minister.

In stinging criticism, Mr. Healey warned that Mr. Starmer’s long-awaited Defence Investment Plan (DIP) for funding over the next decade — which the leader has yet to publish — risked making Britain “less safe”.

Hours later, Mr. Starmer wrote back to Mr. Healey saying his spending plans would allow the armed forces to transform and modernise, adding: “I will always do what is needed to keep our country safe.”

The defence plan has been repeatedly delayed but Mr. Starmer has insisted he will publish it before a NATO summit in Turkey on July 7.

The U.K. Government released a vast trove of documents relating to Peter Mandelson’s appointment as U.S. Ambassador, in a move that threatens to cause fresh damage to Keir Starmer’s faltering premiership.

More than 1,500 pages of documentation were published on the British government’s website just after 2 p.m. local time. They include emails, text messages and other exchanges between government ministers, aides and Mr. Mandelson in the run-up to his appointment as U.S. Envoy, a post he held from February to September 2025.

The release resurfaces a saga that has weakened and embarrassed Mr. Starmer over the nine months since Bloomberg News exposed the extent of Mr. Mandelson’s ties with the late pedophile financier Jeffrey Epstein. An earlier tranche of documents in March showed official vetting of Mr. Mandelson had warned of “reputational risks” over Mr. Mandelson’s Epstein ties.

The scale of Monday’s (June 1, 2026) drop — described by the government as one of the biggest-ever Parliamentary publications — means its full impact on Mr. Starmer won’t immediately be known. 

But the Prime Minister has already suffered months-long blowback from both opposition parties and his own Labour MPs concerning the judgment he showed in appointing Mr. Mandelson, given the former Labour grandee’s history of resigning in disgrace from past government roles and a penchant for political maneuvering that earned him the nickname “Prince of Darkness.”

The scandal has already led to the departure of Mr. Starmer’s chief of staff, Morgan McSweeney, who quit in February citing his advice to the premier to appoint Mr. Mandelson. He was followed out of Downing Street by Tim Allan, who had been director of communications. 

The disclosure of information relating to the former envoy was forced on the government in February by the main opposition Conservative Party, using an arcane parliamentary procedure known as a humble address. Under its terms, the government must disclose communications between Mr. Mandelson and Ministers and officials for the six months prior to his appointment as Ambassador, and throughout his seven-month tenure. 

That has been complicated by the police investigation into the former envoy, with officers requesting that some information be withheld so as not to prejudice their probe.

Ahead of the publication on Monday (June 1, 2026), Mr. Starmer’s spokesman, Tom Wells. told reporters the task had involved every government department, resulting in the largest ever response to a humble address.

“It represents thousands of hours of work from officials across the government to deliver an unprecedented piece of government transparency,” Mr. Wells said. “Material of a party-political nature will be included in the publication, which is contrary to usual practice and precedent, in order to demonstrate the maximum possible transparency. A number of documents have also been declassified to enable publication.”

Mr. Starmer’s premiership is hanging in the balance not even two years on from his landslide general election victory in July 2024. His government quickly lost popularity with voters amid a series of scandals and missteps, not least the appointment of Mandelson himself.

Heavy losses at a set of local elections in May led to more than 90 Labour MPs calling for Mr. Starmer to resign. Andy Burnham, the Greater Manchester mayor, is widely expected to launch a leadership challenge against Mr. Starmer this summer if he can first win a parliamentary special election in northwest England that’s scheduled for June 18.

Since Bloomberg’s investigation into Mr. Mandelson’s Epstein ties, which centered on information published by the U.S. Department of Justice relating to the disgraced financier, further revelations in the Epstein files have led to a police investigation and plunged Mr. Starmer’s administration into political chaos as the premier struggled to defend his handling of the appointment. Mr. Mandelson has denied any wrongdoing.

British Health Minister Wes Streeting resigned ‌from government on ​Thursday (May 14, 2026), saying ⁠he had lost confidence in Prime Minister Keir ‌Starmer’s leadership.

“It is now ‌clear that you ‌will ⁠not lead ⁠the Labour Party into the next general election ​and that ‌Labour MPs and Labour Unions want the debate about what ‌comes next to ​be a battle of ideas, not ⁠of personalities or petty factionalism,” ‌Mr. Streeting said in a letter published on X.

“It needs to be broad, and it ‌needs the best possible ​field of candidates. I support that ⁠approach and I ⁠hope that you will facilitate this.”