{"id":417325,"date":"2026-02-10T04:05:15","date_gmt":"2026-02-10T04:05:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/417325\/"},"modified":"2026-02-10T04:05:15","modified_gmt":"2026-02-10T04:05:15","slug":"what-will-happen-if-britains-keir-starmer-quits","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/417325\/","title":{"rendered":"What will happen if Britain&#8217;s Keir Starmer quits"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer is facing calls to step down with his team in crisis over the appointment of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.jpost.com\/international\/article-885273\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Peter Mandelson<\/a> as ambassador to the US, a decision that has backfired following revelations about the depth of Mandelson&#8217;s relationship with US sex offender <a href=\"https:\/\/www.jpost.com\/opinion\/article-885933\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Jeffrey Epstein<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"article-paragraph-section article-body-paragraph\">Here&#8217;s what happens if Starmer resigns or faces a leadership challenge.<\/p>\n<p class=\"article-paragraph-section article-body-paragraph\">The party would hold a leadership contest to replace him.<\/p>\n<p>Any candidate wishing to stand would need to secure the support of 20% of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.jpost.com\/diaspora\/antisemitism\/article-882555\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Labour members of parliament.<\/a> With Labour currently holding 404 seats, that equates to 81 backers.<\/p>\n<p class=\"article-paragraph-section article-body-paragraph\">Candidates must also meet thresholds for support from grassroots Labour Party organizations and from affiliated organizations such as trade unions.<\/p>\n<p class=\"article-paragraph-section article-body-paragraph\">If only one candidate qualifies, there is no vote: the candidate is elected unopposed as Labour leader and becomes prime minister.<\/p>\n<p class=\"article-paragraph-section article-body-paragraph\">If more than one candidate qualifies, the winner is decided by a ballot of Labour members and affiliates. The winner then becomes prime minister.<\/p>\n<p class=\"article-paragraph-section article-body-paragraph\">A leadership challenge can be triggered if there is enough support behind a candidate to replace Starmer.<\/p>\n<p class=\"article-paragraph-section article-body-paragraph\">Candidates to replace the prime minister would need to meet the 81 lawmaker threshold, as things currently stand. Starmer would automatically be on the ballot paper in any such contest.<\/p>\n<p class=\"article-paragraph-section article-body-paragraph\">The contest would then be run according to the same process that would follow a resignation.<\/p>\n<p class=\"article-paragraph-section article-body-paragraph\">It is generally harder for Labour lawmakers to remove a prime minister than the rival Conservative Party, which went through five prime ministers in eight years from 2016, because the Labour rebels have to rally behind specific candidates, rather than just a &#8216;no confidence&#8217; in the leader.<\/p>\n<p class=\"article-paragraph-section article-body-paragraph\">Labour members of parliament have never successfully removed a sitting prime minister in the party&#8217;s more than 125-year history.<\/p>\n<p>Former Prime Minister <a href=\"https:\/\/www.jpost.com\/tags\/tony-blair\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Tony Blair<\/a> set a deadline for his departure after some junior members of his government resigned in 2006, but he did not quit immediately.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer is facing calls to step down with his team in crisis over the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":417326,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[2307,45148,59,57,58,3365,420,50,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-417325","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-kingdom","tag-britain","tag-epstein-files","tag-gb","tag-great-britain","tag-greatbritain","tag-jeffrey-epstein","tag-keir-starmer","tag-news","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/417325","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=417325"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/417325\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/417326"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=417325"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=417325"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=417325"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}