Andy Burnham, the frontrunner to be Britain’s next Prime Minister, was sworn in as a member of Parliament on Monday, just hours after Keir Starmer announced his resignation from the top job.
The ex-Mayor of Manchester, who was elected to Parliament last week, was cheered by MPs from the UK’s ruling centre-left Labour Party as he took his oath.
Burnham is on track to be elected Labour leader and Prime Minister unopposed, after his main potential rival Wes Streeting confirmed he would not challenge him for the top job.
With no other Labour MP expected to get enough nominations to stand in a leadership election, Burnham could be Britain’s new Prime Minister by mid-July.
Starmer has said he will stay on as Prime Minister until a new Labour leader is elected.
Despite Starmer’s plunging popularity in the UK, leaders in Europe had kinder words for the outgoing British Prime Minister.
European Commission President Ursula Von der Leyen said Starmer praised his efforts to improve security in Europe and the Ukraine.
"It can take many leaders years to grow into the statesman you became in just two years," she added in a post on X.
Starmer pushed to improve relations with the European Union following years of estrangement between the bloc and the UK due to Brexit. But he stopped short of saying that Britain should rejoin the EU.
Ukrainian Prime Minister Volodymyr Zelenskyy thanked Starmer for "for always being in touch, always engaged, and always striving to do what is needed.”
Starmer's support for Ukraine maintained the line followed by Conservative predecessors such as Boris Johnson who threw London's support behind Kyiv after Russia’s invasion in 2022.
French President Emmanuel Macron thanked Starmer for his “revival of the relationships between the United Kingdom and the European Union.”
A German government spokesperson said Starmer had always been "a reliable and close partner.”
Irish Prime Minister Micheál Martin also praised Starmer.
Across the Atlantic, the farewell was less warm.
U.S. President Donald Trump offered a dismissive send-off, announcing a day before the resignation that Starmer would leave, and saying he had "failed badly" on the key issues of immigration and energy, where Trump disagrees sharply with British government policy.
Burnham is set to outline his policies next week in a series of speeches, first focusing on the economy and devolution.
As recently as September 2025, Burnham said he wasn’t interested in a return to national politics and was focused on his former mayoral role in Greater Manchester.
But amid plunging approval ratings for Starmer and his government, Burnham announced his intention to stand in the Makerfield by-election in June to pave the way for a leadership bid.
Burnham emphasised his achievements as Mayor of Greater Manchester in a statement announcing his intention to stand, adding that he sought to “bring the change we have brought to Greater Manchester to the whole of the UK.”
Economic growth in Greater Manchester, the UK’s largest city-region economy outside of London, has outpaced the UK average since 2015 and productivity has increased faster than the national average.
While Burnham has boasted of the region’s success, Greater Manchester’s growth is widely considered to be the result of a decades-long project started by council leaders in the late 1990s.
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