{"id":672891,"date":"2026-07-04T05:19:09","date_gmt":"2026-07-04T05:19:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/672891\/"},"modified":"2026-07-04T05:19:09","modified_gmt":"2026-07-04T05:19:09","slug":"starmer-warns-burnham-he-cannot-spend-less-time-on-diplomacy-keir-starmer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/672891\/","title":{"rendered":"Starmer warns Burnham he cannot spend less time on diplomacy | Keir Starmer"},"content":{"rendered":"

Keir Starmer has warned his likely successor, Andy Burnham<\/a>, that it will not be possible to spend less time focusing on international affairs.<\/p>\n

Speaking during a BBC interview, he also spoke of his \u201cintensely personal\u201d decision to announce his resignation last month<\/a> after two years as prime minister.<\/p>\n

Throughout his premiership, the Labour leader has faced accusations of spending too much time on the world stage instead of domestic affairs, with his opponents calling him \u201cnever here Keir\u201d.<\/p>\n

Burnham has largely focused on domestic issues as he sets out his stall to be the next prime minister.<\/p>\n

But Starmer warned that the future prime minister would not be able to spend less time grappling with the turmoil around the world than he has.<\/p>\n

He told the BBC: \u201cIf you\u2019re prime minister and you care what bills are going to be like in any household around the country, you have to care about finding a lasting solution to the situation in Ukraine, you have to care about what happens in the strait of Hormuz.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not sensible to think you can just separate these two things out.\u201d<\/p>\n

Asked if he believed it was possible for his successor to spend less time on diplomacy, he said: \u201cNo, I don\u2019t think it is possible. So this suggestion you can really, in the modern era, simply split up the international and domestic, is just \u2026 it just doesn\u2019t make sense.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt isn\u2019t true. It isn\u2019t right.\u201d<\/p>\n

Starmer also spoke about how he came to the decision to resign after spending a weekend with his family at Chequers, the grace-and-favour Buckinghamshire country estate available to all prime ministers.<\/p>\n

He said: \u201cFor me, and this may be different for other people, in the end it became an intensely personal decision, and that\u2019s why it was a decision taken ultimately when Vic and I were away with the kids, we went to Chequers and just spent two days together as a family, and that\u2019s when I came to my final decision.\u201d<\/p>\n

Starmer also said he believed he had \u201csaved\u201d the Labour party and had been a successful prime minister, adding he promised to \u201ckeep my mouth shut\u201d under his successor.<\/p>\n

Burnham earlier gave some indication of how he may govern in the realm of foreign policy when he took part in an \u201cAsk Me Anything\u201d session on the forum website Reddit.<\/p>\n

The Makerfield MP said he would \u201c100%\u201d give the same level of support to Ukraine as Starmer had and suggested he wanted to continue with the outgoing prime minister\u2019s efforts to broker a closer relationship with the EU<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Keir Starmer has warned his likely successor, Andy Burnham, that it will not be possible to spend less…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":672892,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[49,50,51,47,52,48],"class_list":["post-672891","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/672891","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=672891"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/672891\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/672892"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=672891"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=672891"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=672891"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}