I welcome Keir Starmer announcing that he will resign as Prime Minister.  He is doing the right thing, but it’s for the wrong reasons. In February, Crawley’s Conservative Councillors called for him to resign in a Full Council motion, that Labour Councillors all voted against.  This followed the revelations that Starmer knew about Peter Mandelson’s close ties to convicted paedophile Jeffrey Epstein, but he appointed him anyway as the American Ambassador.

Additionally, many believe that Starmer lied about the vetting and it has since emerged that Mandelson was deemed a national security risk.  The Mandelson affair alone should have brought Keir Starmer down.  The only reason Starmer is going now is that Andy Burnham engineered a way back to parliament to challenge Starmer, a challenge he would not have survived.

It’s obvious to most people that Keir Starmer has been an awful prime minister, leading an awful Labour government.  However, the latter is not likely to change with the current crop of Labour MPs, who have consistently shown they are unwilling and unable to back any difficult decisions that need to be taken.  This will stop anything difficult that needs to be done, regardless of the national interest.

A prime example of this is the urgent need to increase defence spending by enough to meet the threats we face, while failing to get the spiralling welfare budget under control.  I can’t see this changing, but I would be happy to be proved wrong.           

The indications are that Andy Burnham, whom as I write on Monday morning, has yet to be sworn in as an MP, will become Prime Minister.  It will be interesting to see which Andy Burnham shows up?  The ultimate political chameleon, I recall him being interviewed after he lost his second Labour leadership contest, where he said “No, I’m done with all that” when asked if he still had ambitions to become leader.  The only thing I can be sure of, is he will be gifting public money to the north of England and that we here in Crawley and southern England, will be paying the price.    

Councillor Duncan Crow, Leader of Crawley Borough Council Conservative Group

24th June 2026