UK PM Keir Starmer resigns, one day before 10-year anniversary of Brexit referendum

London, June 22, 2026 — Keir Starmer was meant to fix the country, having promised a clean break from the chaos that engulfed the Conservatives. But on Monday, less than two years after his landslide victory, the prime minister acknowledged he no longer has the support of his Labour MPs and announced he would stand down in weeks.

His resignation means the UK is now, remarkably, heading for its seventh prime minister in a decade — all but certainly Andy Burnham — after years of alarming churn in Downing Street.

In a strange twist of fate, Starmer’s decision came just 24 hours before the 10-year anniversary of the 2016 Brexit referendum.

The Brexit Connection

Even as he delivered his emotional speech outside 10 Downing Street, Starmer was slightly drowned out by Steve Bray, the anti-Brexit campaigner who is still blasting out EU anthems in Westminster a decade on from the referendum.

There is no denying that British politics has been uncharacteristically disruptive over the last decade, as voters grow impatient for the change promised by the Leave campaign. While all of the last six prime ministers were brought down by their own mistakes, Brexit played a part in each downfall.

Starmer's Legacy

Starmer successfully rebuilt UK-EU relations after years of friction — but it came at the cost of his domestic reputation. He became known as "never here Keir" because of his preference for the international stage.

He also tried to ignore the divisive issue of Brexit altogether to avoid alienating Labour voters who backed Leave, but ended up missing a major opportunity to pin the subsequent division on his opponents.

A Decade of Instability

The churn in Downing Street has been relentless:

• Rishi Sunak — in office for 1 year and 255 days — lost a general election where the Tories suffered their worst result in history, only five years after a landslide win in 2019. He helped ease post-Brexit trade frictions on the island of Ireland, but voters were too resentful over the mess left by his predecessors.

• Liz Truss — in office for just 49 days — was forced to resign over her disastrous mini-Budget, a chaotic plan to realize the Eurosceptics' vision of turning the UK into "Singapore-on-Thames." Her staggering tax cuts sent the pound plummeting, and the Bank of England had to scramble to help.

• Boris Johnson — in office for a comparatively long period of 3 years and 44 days — was pushed out primarily over his conduct during Covid, with the partygate scandal and the Chris Pincher affair.