AYESHA RASCOE, HOST:
Tomorrow will be a big day in British politics. Prime Minister Keir Starmer is stepping down, and his successor, Andy Burnham, will take office. Burnham is the former mayor of Manchester, England, and will be the U.K.'s seventh prime minister in just 10 years. NPR's Lauren Frayer is covering this transition of power and joins us now from London. Hi, Lauren.
LAUREN FRAYER, BYLINE: Hi, Ayesha.
RASCOE: Lauren, why is Starmer leaving?
FRAYER: He's basically lost support from rank-and-file lawmakers. In a parliamentary system, the ruling party can swap out its leader if that happens. There have been some scandals. Starmer appointed a friend of the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein as the British ambassador to Washington, you'll recall, and then had to fire him hastily. But mostly, Starmer just kind of failed to convince voters he was delivering change on things like cost of living.
His ruling center-left Labour Party then got hammered in local municipal elections. In May, a far-right anti-immigrant party made gains. And Labour ultimately decided Starmer was a liability, even though the next election isn't for another three years. Here's what Starmer said at his last PMQs, the prime minister's questions, in Parliament this week.
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PRIME MINISTER KEIR STARMER: Every prime minister knows when they take up the torch, that the day will come when they have to pass it on. That day has come for me. This is the end of my political journey.
RASCOE: The end of Starmer's journey and a new chapter for Andy Burnham. Tell us about him.
FRAYER: Yeah. He's no newcomer to Parliament, actually. He was previously an MP for 16 years. He ran for Labour leader twice before and lost, incidentally, once even nominated by none other than his buddy, Keir Starmer.
But he really made his name as Manchester mayor. He brought economic growth to that post-industrial city. He's from the sort of grittier north of England, a bit of a working-class hero. He's known for his advocacy on behalf of bar and restaurant workers during COVID. And his style is sort of all T-shirts rather than suits. He moonlights as a DJ on the indie music scene. His social media videos have been compared to Zohran Mamdani, the New York City mayor.
Burnham was reelected to Parliament last month - became ruling party leader just on Friday. And in his first speech as leader, he said the U.K. has turned its back on the working class.
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ANDY BURNHAM: People in places who have been waiting too long for politics to let them hope again. Now, that's what we're going to do, everybody. We're going to give them hope back.
FRAYER: So that speech was big on hope, but kind of short on actual policy proposals. He did say he wants to reverse the privatization of public transit in some industries and devolve power away from the capital, London, and to municipal and regional authorities. But overall, this is sort of more of a change of personality at the top of British government than policy. Burnham's politics are pretty similar to Starmer's, and he's likely to face a lot of the same challenges - you know, rising cost of living, slow growth and a volatile ally across the Atlantic, where you are.
RASCOE: So how does the handoff work? Like, what will actually happen tomorrow?
FRAYER: King Charles, the monarch, plays a really big role. The outgoing Prime Minister Starmer will go to Buckingham Palace on Monday morning, officially tender his resignation to the king. Burnham then goes to the palace right after him. The king will ask Burnham to form the next government. Starmer and Burnham are both likely to speak in front of Downing Street, but separately. So this is not like at the White House, where the outgoing president welcomes the new one.
Starmer's moving vans are actually already outside 10 Downing Street. We've seen those in recent days. And then we'll be watching Burnham start in office, you know, who he names to his Cabinet, what laws he puts forward. So it's going to be a summer of politics here.
RASCOE: That's NPR's Lauren Frayer in London. Thank you so much.
FRAYER: Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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