As I watched Keir Starmer step out of the black door of Number 10 Downing Street and towards the blazoned lectern to deliver his resignation speech on Monday morning, glancing between the BBC livestream on my phone and the casework on my laptop, I remember the feeling of excitement and optimism I had carried with me over the weekend suddenly wither away. A single sentence I repeated to myself over and over as I watched him list the achievements of his Government: He does not deserve this.
I am one of the few people who joined the Labour Party partly because of Keir Starmer. Those who recall my accounting of how I joined the party in December 2022 will remember I cited his leadership as one of the reasons. As such, I feel an attachment to him. He was my first leader, the first man to whom I looked for political direction as a member of a political party. And for the most part, his leadership was dependable and sound.
I read today in a hard-left publication – the type whose heart is in the right place but which is unburdened by realism – that the only tears that will be shed for Keir Starmer’s departure were those by Keir himself at the lectern. I can tell you for a fact that is not true. When his voice broke speaking about his wife and children, I shed a small tear for the man.
Despite it all (and I’ll go into the “it all” below), I believe in my heart he is a good man who has tried, and for the most part succeeded, to better his nation and improve the lives of its citizens. He made mistakes, as humans often do, but on the whole, he has left a net positive mark on this country, and I have no doubt he will be missed in the near future. Not just by us within Labour, but by the nation at large.
I’ll get the criticisms out of the way first, as I want what will likely be my final article about Keir to end in much the same way he ended his premiership, with grace and dignity, lauding his achievements.
That being said, there are aspects of his time as PM I am not able to reconcile with. The first, and most damaging scandal he perpetuated and endured, was his appointment and subsequent sacking of Peter Mandelson as US Ambassador.
I have said before this decision was unforgivable, and the lack of foresight and judgement shown in appointing the peer (or his permissiveness at allowing Mandelson to be appointed by certain elements of the party) was frankly shocking to me. The reasons are understood; Mandelson’s proximity to Trump and their movements in similar dark circles would, I suspect Keir hoped, give the UK Embassy in Washington greater leverage over Trump’s White House.
This was folly, as nothing on Earth can predict Trump’s movements or decisions, and nothing but blackmail with kompromat can persuade or dissuade Trump from his courses of action. Keir’s lack of foresight of Trump’s unpredictability is less egregious than Keir’s lack of foresight of future Mandelson-centric scandal.
Then, the mistakes that will no doubt linger in many minds, as I am hearing on doorsteps, are the U-turns.
Winter fuel payments. Changes to disability benefits. Farmer’s inheritance tax. The national grooming gangs inquiry. The two-child benefit cap.
Each of these initial decisions were panned in Parliament and by the public, and each backpedal that Keir and his Government had to submit to eroded the public’s trust in him more and more. Winter fuel and disability benefits most of all, at least in the MP’s office I work in. Even though each of these decisions were rescinded to varying degrees of recidivism, they still stick in the minds of those whom they would have affected. I still talk to those who believe the original decisions still stand, citing them as reasons they will never vote Labour again. My explanations of the U-turns do not generate much sympathy either.
His crackdown on peaceful protests and turning pensioners with placards into terrorists is another example of his poor judgement. Yes, Palestine Action committed crimes when members broke into RAF Brize Norton and destroyed Government property and assaulted security staff, but proscribing them as a terrorist organisation as a consequence was hugely disproportionate. It’s also another example of Keir’s lack of foresight, as the subsequent protests and deliberate breaches of the Terrorism Act by peaceful protestors should have been predicted by Starmer and team.
Employment and business rates are other aspect of Keir’s leadership where much is left to be desired, and that I hope Andy Burnham will be able to revitalise with his brand of business-friendly socialism. Under Starmer, jobless rates have risen by 0.6%, peaking at 5.2% last December: as high as November 2020, the highest point of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The increase in employer’s national insurance rates are partly to blame for this (although Trump and Netanyahu’s war in Iran is the main culprit). For all of the smaller measures introduced to support small business, I am still hearing from many that operating a small business, especially in sectors like hospitality, has become more difficult since Labour took office.
Chief among my grievances with Keir’s leadership, one that I don’t think I’ve discussed at length here before, is his listless approach to the ongoing genocide in Gaza. The crimes being committed, and the scale of them, by the Israeli Occupation Forces, will go down as the chief atrocity of our age, and I’m ashamed that the UK has taken no meaningful action to stop it.
Wilful murder and massacre, documented evidence of war crimes and crimes against humanity, forced starvation and thirst, targeting of medical workers and journalists, wholesale destruction of infrastructure to utter irreparability, illegal seizure and occupation of internationally recognised sovereign land, deliberate withholding of food, medicine, and baby formula.
Children. Little children. Blown to pieces, burned alive, shot with precision rounds.
And all of it bragged about publicly on mainstream news and by leading politicians in Israel.
The measures Keir imposed in opposition to these crimes – the sanctioning of Israeli Ministers, the halting of trade negotiations, the revoking of certain arms licences, do not go anywhere near far enough. Not only this, but Keir has also allowed the use of UK military infrastructure and intelligence sharing by the IOF. His impotence in the face of this genocide is tantamount to facilitation, and is utterly unforgiveable.
I want to see my country speak up, properly and forcefully on these outrages, like our neighbours and allies in Ireland and Spain, and take meaningful action to try to stop the genocide against Gazans, and Palestinians at large. Recognising the State of Palestine is an extremely small step in the right direction, but alone, it’s an insultingly meagre gesture.
This is a metric I’ll judge Andy Burnham’s premiership by, as should we all. Israel is officially now the most boycotted nation in the world, and that Keir hasn’t led the UK into joining this boycott has deeply, deeply disappointed me.
What do we stand to lose? Friendship with the US? Under Trump, we could lose his friendship with a misconstrued sentence, and gain it back just as easily with a kind word. And Israel? Why the hell would we want to be friends with them, in their current state and with their current leadership? Until that nation changes fundamentally and starts respecting the human rights of non-Jews as well as its own citizens, we should have absolutely nothing to do with them, other than encouraging and pressuring their leaders to uphold international law, and holding the guilty to account.
I do not suspect that he was glad to see the horrors inflicted on the people of Gaza, on the contrary, I feel that he was as disgusted as the rest of us decent people. But I genuinely cannot think of a reason why he did not take a stronger position against the genocide. Keir’s lack of leadership and decency on Gaza is a black mark against his name that many, including some of my relatives and friends, cannot see past. I do not begrudge them for it.
Moving on from Keir’s failure on Gaza to his positive legacy is an awkward segue, but his achievements cannot be understated (despite the fact they were very understated by the woeful communications operation of his Downing Street team).
OK I promise, no more criticisms.
There will always be those who are not able to see past Keir’s failings, but I believe a leader’s record should always be viewed in the round. Whether or not his achievements and shortcomings add up to net positive or negative is subjective. As for myself, I fall within the former opinion.
Firstly, the policy I have spent the most time discussing in my work, owing to my boss’s former Ministerial position in the DBT, is the Employment Rights Act. When you hear Keir and his frontbench bang on about delivering the “biggest upgrade to worker’s rights in a generation”, it’s not hyperbole.
Statutory sick pay is now claimable for all eligible workers from day one of their illness. New mothers and fathers are now eligible for paid parental leave from day one of their employment. The same goes for bereavement leave, including for baby loss. Whilst zero-hours contracts are not banned, it has improved security for workers, introducing guaranteed hours based on working patterns, maintaining flexibility for those who need it. Stronger protections against unfair dismissal are also included, reducing the qualifying period from two years to six months, and banning fire and rehire.
The next generation of British workers will enjoy greater job security, improved standards in the workplace, and fairer treatment for all.
Alongside this Act, around 2.7 million of the lowest paid workers in the country received a 4.1% pay increase as the minimum wage rose to £12.71 per hour, with pay increases also for 18-20 year old workers, and well as under-18s and apprentices.
Private renters have also benefitted from Keir Starmer’s leadership, with his Government’s Renter’s Rights Act delivering similarly monumental reform to a housing market which has disproportionately benefitted wealthy landlords for far too long. On 1 May 2026, my own landlord delivered me a copy of the Act, and was happy to do so (my landlord is a lovely person, unlike so many others). Unfair rent increases have been restricted, and landlords and agents can no longer encourage rental bidding wars to drive up rent prices. The Act also extends the Decent Homes Standard and Awaab’s Law to the private sector, ensuring serious hazards and repair issues will be addressed, or landlords face penalties. Landlords also now require reasonable grounds to refuse tenants keeping pets, and a new Private Rented Sector Landlord Ombudsman and national property database improve accountability and provide quicker resolution of disputes.
Chief among the reforms the Act brings in is the abolition of section 21 evictions, or no-fault evictions, meaning landlords must now have a valid legal reason to evict tenants. In my day job as a caseworker, a plurality of the homelessness cases I deal with involve the use of a section 21 notice. Unscrupulous landlords can now no longer rely on this heartless policy, and I’m so proud that Keir and co. abolished this for good.
Keir’s was a Government which put the least advantaged people in the country at the centre of its focus. Above are such examples for working people and adults, but his relentless drive to improve quality of life for children is another reason I’m proud to have had him as my leader.
The first policy that springs to mind in this regard is the lifting of the two-child benefit cap, a policy which, with the stroke of a pen, lifted half a million British children out of poverty. I’ll not hear a word from anyone who was in favour of the cap, as their viewpoint fails to recognise one vital fact: the children did not ask to be born. Why punish them for simply being here? The cap did nothing to force parents to “live within their means”, and I’m glad to finally see the back of it.
What should have been a lasting legacy of the New Labour era, Sure Start, saw its end under the Tories, but was reborn under Keir Starmer as Best Start, with his Government announcing 1,000 new Best Start family hubs across the nation.
Unlike the Tories, who axed Sure Start because it was a Labour policy that cost more than they felt like spending, Keir was not afraid to bring forward Conservative policies which worked in the national interest. An example of this is the Tobacco and Vapes Act, safeguarding against the harms of these substances and ensuring that the country will one day be smoke-free, and also the full rolling out of 30 hours of free childcare for eligible working parents, another Tory policy that Keir brought forward with him into Government.
Every primary school pupil in England now have access to free breakfast clubs, easing pressure on the least well-off parents and ensuring no child starts the learning day hungry. And whilst vital work is still needed to reform the overstretched SEND system in England, Keir and his Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson have taken huge strides towards ensuring all children, no matter their need or ability, get the best possible start in life.
For those who say Keir and his Government lacked a purpose and a vision, I’d point them to the above, to what he has done for the children of this country, and for their parents. After all, is there any more important vision than improving the lives of our children?
Where most people say Keir shone the brightest was on the international stage. Whilst he did not maintain his Trump whisperer title for long, he has brought the UK back to the forefront of international politics as a true world leader, strengthening ties with Europe and rebuilding that particular scorched bridge after the Conservative’s attempts to burn it to ash.
I, and most people in the UK, want to see the UK rejoin the EU, and although Starmer stuck to the manifesto pledge of no return to the single market, customs union, or freedom of movement, he’s acknowledged Brexit’s disastrous consequences at home and abroad, and placed the UK back firmly in the centre of European politics. He is often seen confidently shoulder-to-shoulder with European leaders like Macron, Merz, Tusk, Meloni, and most importantly, Zelenskyy.
The UK has maintained its position as Ukraine’s staunchest European ally under Starmer, and British support for their ongoing, and now winning struggle against Putin’s war machine has not wavered once. He supported the EU’s £78 billion loan for Ukraine, in a move that not only strengthened Ukraine, but brought the UK even closer to the EU once more.
And on Trump, we should not forget the deal Keir made with the Great Orange One shortly after the infamous “liberation day”. The tariffs Trump imposed on UK aluminium, steel, and vehicles were slashed, saving thousands of British jobs, including in my boss’s constituency, through sheer diplomacy.
I often heard from my employer’s constituents that they were most proud of Keir when he was on the international stage. He was a truly brilliant ambassador for this country, signalling to the world that Britian is back like it never left.
A central and driving tenet of the 2024 manifesto was restoring economic growth to the UK. Notwithstanding Trump and Israel’s war with Iran (which Keir also kept us firmly away from, with UK assets being used for strictly defensive purposes to protect British lives in the region), the UK economy has started to recover under Keir’s leadership, and that of Rachel Reeves. As promised in the manifesto, the UK has the fastest growing economy in the G7, and we have regained our place as the fifth largest economy in the world.
Inflation is falling faster than predicted in good news for mortgage holders, and investment from the private sector is being encouraged by the £7.3 billion National Wealth Fund, focusing on green projects and infrastructure.
Something that is mentioned to me more often on doorsteps in more deprived neighbourhoods than any of the above is, predictably, immigration. People still see it as the most pressing issue facing them, but for those people, Keir has also made large strides towards addressing the core issues. Net migration has fallen from its peak under the Tories of 940,000 in 2023 to around 180,000 now. Whilst I don’t really see this as something to shout about, given the billions in lost tax revenue we face as a result of losing so many immigrants, it should keep the Barry63s happy.
Another gammon-pleasing achievement is the progress made towards stopping small boat crossings over the English Channel. For a few weeks in June, despite the good weather, we saw no boats cross the Channel, and those that are making it to the UK now are far less numerous, with small boat arrivals down 41% in the last 12 months. Hundreds of asylum hotels have also closed, and meaningful progress has been made towards slashing the backlog of asylum claims, helped no end by the reduction in crossings.
And finally, the most important aspect of British politics to my mind, the NHS, has seen real measurable improvement under Keir’s leadership. Yes, whilst waiting lists are still too long, numbers are finally falling for the first time in years, freeing up millions of additional appointments since Labour took office. Thousands of new GPs have been recruited, easing pressure on local services, with greater use of evening and weekend clinics and community diagnostic centres also contributing to this.
Keir’s Government has also focused more heavily on preventing illness, with expanded public health initiatives to tackle obesity, smoking, and mental health issues, easing long-term pressure on NHS services. Increased funding has also been directed towards community healthcare, allowing more patients with long-term conditions to receive treatment closer to home instead of in busy hospitals.
There is still a long way to go before the NHS can rise from its knees and exit crisis management mode once again, but just as with most things Keir has touched, steps in the right direction have most certainly been made. Not just steps, but strides. Big bounding ones.
Taking all of these achievements into account, I cannot be convinced that Keir’s premiership was a failure. He has delivered more positive change in two years than the Conservatives managed in fourteen. Whilst his failures are notable and cannot be ignored, nor indeed should they be, attempts to brush over his many and shining achievements to focus solely on his failures are cynical and disproportionate.
I’ve heard so many times from so many different people from diverse political stripes that they believe Keir was the worst Prime Minister we’ve ever had (I usually bring up Liz Truss in these kind of conversations and am met with backpedalling). Such accusations are glaringly unfair to him, and mainly fuelled by propaganda from dubious and murkily funded outlets and bad online actors.
No, he has not been everything I hoped he would be. We still don’t have a wealth tax, wealth inequality in the UK is still sickeningly wide, inefficiencies still plague much of the public sector, it is still too difficult for too many small businesses to operate, and we still have not condemned and acted firmly against genocide, amongst a litany of other grievances I hold.
However, the man himself has left a lasting positive legacy, and I believe he can be rightly proud of his time in office. Now it is up to the man who will replace him to carry the torch forwards and bring the radical change we voted for in 2024. I’d like to see Keir continue to play a role in it.
He was my first leader. He is a good man. I’ll miss him.
stay safe
/e