Starmer’s time is up — but not just yet

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer has won what looks less like a reprieve than a postponement of the inevitable.

After Thursday’s local elections, his Labour Party’s position is grim by almost any historical standard. It lost roughly 1,500 council seats in England, failed to dislodge the Scottish National Party in Scotland and, most symbolically of all, surrendered Wales to Plaid Cymru for the first time in more than a century.

Meanwhile, far-right politician Nigel Farage’s Reform UK continued its advance across Labour’s former heartlands, while the Greens tightened their grip on younger progressive voters.

Still, for all the panic in Westminster, it seems there will still be no immediate move to remove the prime minister. A handful of members of parliament have publicly questioned his leadership, but Cabinet ministers and backbench organizers have not crossed the threshold from despair to open revolt — yet.

Starmer will survive for now because the party, particularly its influential soft left faction, appears to be waiting for Mayor of Greater Manchester Andy Burnham. The mayor’s allies expect him to return to Westminster within months via a by-election triggered by the resignation of a sympathetic backbench Labour MP — a prospect that is already shaping calculations inside the party.

Burnham’s star is currently on the rise while that of former Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner is waning amid fears she is less popular with voters. Health Secretary Wes Streeting  also enjoys support from Labour MPs, but he is unlikely to win a majority among the grassroots party members who elect the leader.

Geopolitics is also buying Starmer time. Many senior Labour figures maintain the view that voters would not forgive the party for toppling a prime minister during a period of war and economic uncertainty. In their view, Starmer should absorb the political damage from the coming cost-of-living pressures caused by the war in Iran.

But that will only delay his fate.

Pressure is already building inside government for Starmer to set a departure timetable and oversee an orderly transition. The prime minister will resist these demands, warning that announcing an exit date would instantly make him a lame duck, unsettling financial markets already nervous about the state of the U.K.’s public finances and meager growth outlook.

Some critics hope Labour’s annual conference in September will become the decisive moment of departure. Others think Starmer could actually stagger along longer unless another scandal — perhaps one related to Peter Mandelson’s appointment as U.K. ambassador to Washington — tips the balance.

No doubt, the prime minister’s response will be to attempt a political reset. In his upcoming speech on Monday, he will likely promise going “further and faster” on reform and signal a shift in political strategy: Rather than competing directly with Reform in the North and the Midlands, the party appears increasingly ready to focus on recapturing progressive voters who are drifting toward the Greens.

Within Labour another debate has also begun about whether global instability, the Iran war and the unpredictability of U.S. President Donald Trump could justify abandoning some of the party’s 2024 manifesto constraints. Proposals once considered politically impossible, such as income tax rises to fund higher defense spending or membership to the EU Single Market and Customs Union, are now being discussed.

Yet, many Labour MPs doubt Starmer has the conviction — or political courage — to execute such a turn. Their suspicion is that he will continue to postpone the hardest decisions until the next election, perhaps even reserving an argument for rejoining the Single Market, Customs Union or the EU itself for the 2029 manifesto, so as to avoid any accusation of broken promises.

But it is precisely this caution, which the prime minister has demonstrated time and again, that is likely to prove fatal.