Starmer braces for Cabinet showdown with Burnham ready to pounce

A clear majority of Keir Starmer’s Cabinet believe it’s now inevitable Andy Burnham’s will take over as prime minister, according to people familiar with the thinking of more than 15 Cabinet ministers, who spoke to Bloomberg on condition of anonymity on Friday.

However, as of late in the afternoon, most remained unwilling to do anything about it. The majority of the Cabinet was still not ready to tell Starmer to set out a timetable for his departure, the people said, preferring to wait and see how developments unfold. 

Starmer held a series of telephone conversations with his senior ministers throughout the day to gauge their positions, they added. One, Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander, did tell Starmer that he should go, and more could follow suit. But the key question remained - will the Cabinet move decisively against him in the coming hours or days?

Meanwhile, Burnham does not intend to launch an immediate leadership challenge, people familiar with his plans said. The scale of victory over Nigel Farage’s Reform U.K. in Makerfield proves Burnham is best placed to lead Labour against the populist right, they added, arguing that the longer Starmer tries to resist the more damaging his exit will be.

Starmer doesn’t agree. “I’m not going to walk away,” he said again on Friday morning, insisting he would fight any contest. He told a call with Labour staffers: “Let’s pull together as a party and a movement. The one thing we’ve got to avoid doing is plunging our party and our country into chaos by turning on each other.”

As the extent of his thumping victory over Reform was announced in the early hours of Friday morning, Burnham stood on stage at a conference center in Wigan beside fellow candidates - including one called Count Binface, and another dressed as a fox. 

As prime minister, he would soon be standing next to fellow leaders on the international stage instead, but the route to the E.U. summit in July or September’s UN general assembly in New York remains unclear.

The mayor of Greater Manchester since 2017, Burnham will stand down from that position and take his seat in Westminster on Monday but plans to let pressure build over the weekend without intervening further.

Burnham’s team is skeptical as to whether rival leadership contender Wes Streeting has enough support among MPs to stand in any contest, prompting speculation the two men could strike a deal. But allies of Streeting denied the former health secretary is preparing to bow out of a leadership race - pointing to his repeated calls for an open debate about the future of the party and stating his view had not changed. 

Government officials placed Cabinet ministers in four broad groupings. The first are those who are ultra-loyal to Starmer and want him to fight on, including Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves, Attorney General Richard Hermer and Housing Secretary Steve Reed, the people said.

Then there are the more pragmatic loyalists, which form the majority of the Cabinet, the people said. This group remains loyal but would not want Starmer to hurt his reputation by fighting on when it is impossible for him to continue. They do not yet think he is in that position. It is likely to include Justice Secretary David Lammy, Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper, Work and Pensions Secretary Pat McFadden, Business Secretary Peter Kyle, Scottish Secretary Douglas Alexander and Chief Whip Jonathan Reynolds, they said.

A third group consists of those more seriously considering telling Starmer he should consider agreeing a handover to Burnham in the discussions taking place Friday. That was likely to include Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson, the people said. These ministers may feel they are more likely to secure ministerial roles in a Burnham administration, they added. Alexander spoke to Starmer by phone on Friday, a person familiar said, declining to elaborate on what they said was a private discussion. 

The fourth group is the actively pro-Burnham camp in the Cabinet, made up of Energy Secretary Ed Miliband, Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood and Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy, the people said.

Newer members of the Cabinet, such as recently appointed Defense Secretary Dan Jarvis and Health Secretary James Murray, are unlikely to want to get involved in the discussions, the people said.

Some Starmer loyalists told Bloomberg they thought the PM should fight Burnham in a leadership contest in order to ensure his policies and ideas were tested. Calls by Burnham’s allies for an orderly handover later in the summer are evidence he is not yet ready for the job and does not have a plan, one Starmer ally said. If he wants to be prime minister he should formally challenge Starmer, another said.

Another said it had not yet reached the point where Starmer’s loyalists have to tell him to go. That could still happen, but we’re not there yet, they said.

The options facing Starmer “are now few and far between,” his former political director Luke Sullivan told Times Radio. “This result, the scale of it, has changed all possible paths for survival for the prime minister.”

-With assistance from Lucy White and Jacob Reid.

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This story was originally published June 19, 2026 at 9:14 AM.