At last, he’s gone. After six years as Labour leader and two as prime minister, Keir Starmer has resigned. While Starmer has been facing mounting pressure to go for weeks now, the straw that broke the camel’s back was the recent Makerfield by-election, where Manchester mayor Andy Burnham won the seat for Labour with a stunning 55 per cent majority of the vote, solidly defeating hard-right candidates from Reform and Restore. With a reputation as a ‘man of the people’ and close ties to the North, many commentators have posed the question: could Burnham stop Reform?

While it’s not yet certain, it’s looking likely Burnham will be getting the keys to No. 10. But no matter who the next Labour leader is, it’s safe to say that seeing the back of Starmer is an unambiguous positive for British politics. For years now, the prime minister has disappointed the left-leaning people of the UK in myriad ways: from dehumanising Gazan refugees, to bending to transphobic court decisions, to pandering to Reform with inflammatory, anti-immigration rhetoric. In case you’d forgotten, here’s a round-up of some of his worst moments.

WHEN HE CLOSED THE LOOPHOLE THAT LET GAZANS COME TO THE UK UNDER THE UKRAINE REFUGEE SCHEME 

In February 2025, Starmer blocked Palestinians entering the UK by applying through the Ukrainian refugee sponsorship scheme. A Palestinian family from Gaza who had used the scheme argued that they should have been permitted to use the ‘Homes for Ukraine’ programme to escape Israeli violence, as there was no other dedicated pathway for Gazan refugees to enter the UK; judges initially allowed them to stay, highlighting that the youngest children were “at a high risk of death or serious injury daily” back in Gaza. But Starmer argued that the scheme was strictly for Ukrainian refugees and vowed to close the ‘loophole’ which had allowed the displaced family to settle in the UK. (SS)

SLAGGED OFF THE BLM MOVEMENT 

The first time I realised Starmer was a weak leader who stands for nothing was when he slagged off the Black Lives Matter protests just after he was elected Leader of the Labour Party. After the murder of George Floyd by a white police officer in Minneapolis, Starmer pledged his undying support for the police, telling the BBC that “nobody should be saying anything about defunding the police.” He also called the BLM movement a “moment” – suggesting that it will pass, rather than radically shift or change the way the world treats Black people. After being rightfully condemned for his lack of regard for the violence being enacted upon Black people in the US and the UK, he started unconscious bias training, and we were cursed with the image of him and Angela Rayner kneeling in a parliamentary office to show their opposition to anti-Black racism. Racism ended!! (HJ)

RAISED TUITION FEES AFTER PLEDGING NOT TO 

While running to be Labour leader, Starmer pledged to abolish tuition fees. But when he came to power, he quickly abandoned that promise to supposedly ‘tackle the NHS crisis’. In May 2024, he told BBC’s Radio 4 that: “Looking at the costing for tuition fees or abolishing them, looking at the money we need to put into the NHS, I’ve taken the decision that we can’t do both.” After breaking what was an extremely significant promise to young people, you’d think he’d leave tuition fees as they are – NOPE! Instead, for the first time in seven years, Starmer increased tuition fees (which are already an astronomical price) by £285 in 2025. (HJ)

TURNED HIS BACK ON THE TRANS COMMUNITY 

Under Starmer’s leadership, the UK has ushered in some of the harshest anti-trans legislation in the western world. While some of this stems from judiciary decisions beyond his direct control, Starmer has gone along with all of it; after a Supreme Court ruling on the meaning of “sex” in the Equality Act, he walked back on his previously stated position that trans women are women, insisting instead that “a woman is an adult female, the court has made that absolutely clear.” He also withdrew his previous support for trans people’s right to self-ID, and came out against “gender ideology” being taught in schools, mirroring the rhetoric of the anti-trans movement. As far as trans rights go, he has been a worse prime minister than any of his conservative predecessors. (JG)

SACKED PEOPLE FOR BEING RIGHT 

Despite having the demeanor of a boring deputy headmaster, Starmer’s approach to politics has been markedly authoritarian, as demonstrated in how he controlled the Labour Party and his broader attacks on civil liberties. Perhaps the most egregious example came when he removed the whip from seven MPs for voting in favour of scrapping the two-child benefit cap, a policy which has been held responsible for high levels of child poverty in the UK. When he changed his mind and scrapped the cap two years later, he bragged about this as a major policy achievement, as though he had been in favour all along. (JG)

ENDORSED WAR CRIMES 

Speaking on LBC just days after October 7, Starmer claimed that Israel “has the right” to cut off water and electricity to Gaza, which is a war crime, before adding “obviously everything should be done within international law”. While he later backtracked, these comments set the tone for his leadership during the Gaza genocide: over the next two years he would often suggest that Israel “must abide by international law”, while mostly failing to condemn the most egregious, blatant examples of it failure to do so. This support went beyond the rhetorical: under Starmer, the UK provided Israel with direct military support, from increasing weapons sales to running surveillance flights on its behalf. This will be greatest stain on his legacy. (JG)

REPRESSED AND PUNISHED THE RIGHT TO PROTEST 

This past May, on BBC 4 Radio, Starmer suggested that he may ban some forms of protest (following calls for a suspension of pro-Palestine marches) and create tougher policing around the language used at these protests. During his time as prime minister, Starmer supported the ban on Palestine Action, a direct action group which opposes the supply of weapons to Israel. In April, he oversaw the arrest of hundreds of people for holding signs in support of the proscribed organisation, in what is one of the worst attacks on civil liberties in recent British history. (HJ)

PANDERED TO REFORM (AND ECHOED ENOCH POWELL)

Back in May 2025, Starmer held a press conference to coincide with the publication of a White Paper on immigration. In it, he said: “Nations depend on rules – fair rules [...] Without them, we risk becoming an island of strangers, not a nation that walks forward together.” Alarmingly, Starmer’s reference to an “island of strangers” was reminiscent of Enoch Powell’s 1968 ‘Rivers of Blood’ speech, where the notoriously racist MP described a future in which Brits “found themselves made strangers in their own country”. The backlash to Starmer’s speech was so bad that he made a statement effectively retracting his remarks: “that particular phrase – no – it wasn’t right. I'll give you the honest truth: I deeply regret using it.” (SS)

PETER MANDELSON GATE

While Starmer later claimed to be blindsided by the extent of Peter Mandelson’s relationship with Jeffrey Epstein, the fact they had been good friends was already public knowledge at the time of Mandelson’s appointment to US ambassador in 2024. There was plenty of photographic evidence, and surely someone being even quite good friends with a billionaire sex trafficker and the world’s most famous pedophile is good enough reason not to give them one of the most prestigious jobs in politics. Considering that Epstein was such an ongoing and combustible issue in US politics at the time, the appointment was clearly a terrible idea (although much of the British media made you out to be a deranged conspiracy theorist if you even mentioned it), and pushing it through was one of the most arrogant things that Starmer ever did — it really did seem like he was stunting on the left of the party in the most antagonistic way possible. It’s hard to say whether this was the decisive point in his downfall – for a while it looked like he’d weathered the initial scandal - but it was satisfying to see it blow up in his face. (JG)