by Stephen Fisher, 15^th July 2026 

Many people are somewhat bemused by Keir Starmer’s resignation as prime minister. Some quite like him and struggle to understand why others do not. Some were unimpressed but did not think he was quite so bad, especially under difficult circumstances. Other prime ministers left office after much more obvious failings or dishonesty, or after having been around for too long. Starmer’s resignation is harder to attribute to any particular mistake. It was ultimately, if not purely, because he and his government had become too unpopular, too quickly, with no sign of recovery. For Labour to have a chance of winning the next election, Starmer had to go.

In his resignation statement Starmer, said, “the question my party is asking now is whether I am best placed to lead us into the next general election. I have heard the answer of my parliamentary party to that question. And I accept that answer with good grace.” 

It will never be clear exactly when Labour MPs ran out of patience with a prime minister that was presiding over disastrous polling and election results. But to understand why Starmer was forced to resign we have to understand why he became so unpopular so quickly with the voters. 

This post examines the trajectory of Labour’s support in the polls and elections over the last two years to try to identify which events did the most damage. The large majority of the most controversial developments had no discernible impact on Labour support. Indeed, those after October 2025 happened when Labour were essentially flatlining in the polls. Before that there were essentially three main phases: a brief honeymoon with a +3 point bounce in July 2024; a -12 point drop in Labour support from July to December 2024; and a further -7 point drop from December 2024 to October 2025. Both drops involved remarkably smooth and steady decline, rather than a series of downward steps. That suggests gradually mounting dissatisfaction from those who voted Labour, or a drip feed of disappointing news, rather than a few particular events driving down support for Labour. Even though the impact of events on public opinion typically take a while to be fully realised, major events have immediate as well as gradually incrementing effects. There were no such major events with a measurable immediate impact on Labour support in the polls, with one major exception.

That exception, and what ended the July 2024 honeymoon for Labour, was the announcement that Winter Fuel Payments would be restricted to the very poorest pensioners, but also, on the same day, the Southport murders and subsequent riots. Those events were followed by an immediate 3 to 4 point drop in Labour support and marked the start of an unprecedentedly fast and steep decline. That then translated into poor election results, including the loss of 66% of the seats they defended at the May 2025 local elections. That summer, there was sufficient discontent for Andy Burnham to publicly discuss a leadership challenge. Starmer was still powerful enough within the party to thwart Burnham’s first attempt to return to parliament. But ever since Labour were pushed into third place by the Greens and Reform at the Gorton and Denton by-election, in February 2026, there has been a long drawn-out process of leadership change. First there was a wait for the elections in May, where Labour suffered their worst ever Scottish Parliament result, their first election loss in Wales since 1935, and lost 58% of the councils and 58% of the council seats they were defending in England. Then there was a wait for Burnham to return to parliament in June. After that, the game was up for Starmer. 

Since most of the decline in Labour support was so relentlessly steady, it is essentially impossible to pin the blame for it solely on the events at the starting point or any particular subset of the numerous persistent and chronic difficulties for the government and the country as a whole. Perhaps the government could have recovered from their early mistakes, but I leave it for others to judge whether Starmer was ever capable of doing so or whether there was something in the international, economic, fiscal, public service, party political, parliamentary, media, social media, and other circumstances that would have stymied even the most charismatic, visionary, and competent prime minister.

The next section reviews the circumstances of Starmer’s election victory and inheritance before examining the trajectory of support for Labour over the last two years. The penultimate two-sections discuss the period from the May 2026 local elections to Starmer’s resignation and the immediate aftermath of that resignation. The final section briefly discusses some of the challenges and prospects for Andy Burnham. 

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