Starmer latest: PM expected to announce resignation on Monday as Trump piles on pressure

Neil Coyle, Labour MP for Bermondsey, has said that Sir Keir Starmer is a victim of “an utter stitch-up”.

Posting on X on Sunday, Mr Coyle said: “My members are livid about the prospect of an utter stitch-up and the media circus being rewarded. When the next leader cannot change Trump, Iran, Ukraine, Putin, Musk, broadcast editorial and algorithm bias overnight they’ll bay for his blood too. Better keep that guillotine sharp.”

As a nation waits on a potential announcement by Sir Keir Starmer tomorrow, discussions are already taking place over what happens next, with some debating the timeline for Andy Burnham possibly becoming PM.

A source told The Independent that the prime minister is now “working towards” a handover in early September after the summer recess, but MPs have also suggested it could be as early as mid-July.

But Clive Lewis, Labour MP for Norwich South, has told The Telegraph that Mr Burnham should take the time to prepare properly for power.

He said: “Starmer failed to do this. And as my dad always used to drill into me before exams – fail to prepare then prepare to fail.”

Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch played a “critical” role in the party’s victory in the Aberdeen South by-election, Russell Findlay has said.

The Scottish Conservative leader said people in the seat had recognised the vote was “effectively a referendum on oil and gas”, and the victory came after a “huge team effort” from the party.

The Conservatives took Aberdeen South from the SNP in emphatic fashion, with Douglas Lumsden elected as the new MP after winning by more than 6,000 votes.

It was the party’s first by-election victory in Scotland since 1967. Mr Findlay said voters were drawn to the Tories’ message on oil and gas.

He told the BBC’s The Sunday Show: “The people of Aberdeen knew this was effectively a referendum on oil and gas.

“Kemi Badenoch and I are crystal clear. We wanted to give the people of Aberdeen the choice to say No to the net zero madness of Labour and the SNP.

“We want an affordable transition, but it cannot come at the cost of thousands of jobs and destroying an entire industry, and that’s why people came out with record numbers to vote for our candidate, Douglas Lumsden, an oil and gas champion, who will go down to Westminster and take that message directly to Keir Starmer or whoever might be in Downing Street next.”

Former prime minister Rishi Sunak has warned Andy Burnham that he could see his support drain away if he takes the highest office.

Writing in a column for The Times, the former Tory leader warned that all leaders across Europe are facing pressure to deliver faster than ever.

He said: “Political capital depreciates more quickly than ever before. That Starmer and Merz are both facing such leadership speculation less than two years after winning elections is an illustration of that.

“Burnham must recognise that if he reaches No 10, he’ll never have more power than on his first day in the job. It is vital he has a clear and achievable plan for what he wants to do in those opening hours.”

It is fair to say that when Labour wins a by-election there is usually a photo call invite to Labour MPs when the winner arrives in parliament, writes Political Editor David Maddox.

But this one has been received differently. An invitation for the Parliamentary Labour Party (PLP) office has gone out for a photo call with Andy Burnham at 3pm in Westminster Hall on Monday.

With an expectation that prime minister Sir Keir Starmer is working up a deal to hand over the leadership of the party and his job as PM over to Mr Burnham the invitation is already being described as “a coronation.”

Normally most MPs do not make it to these photo calls but this one is expected to have almost everyone present. The 3pm timing is conveniently after the morning time that the prime minister is expected to make his fateful announcement at the podium in Downing Street that he is to relinquish power.

The only issue now maybe is if enough MPs back an alternative candidate to run against Mr Burnham in a contest. Otherwise the photo call may as well be a coronation.

Concerns are growing around suggestions that Sir Keir Starmer could wait until September to step down, despite reports that the prime minister could announce a timetable as early as Monday.

One minister has told The Times that Andy Burnham’s premiership could be “defined by Starmer’s decisions” if the handover does not happen until the autumn.

There are Nato and EU summits next month, where key decisions on defence spending, will need to be made, The Times’s Aubrey Allegretti writes.

One MP said: “A summer of waiting is stupid and incredibly self-indulgent”.

Sir Keir Starmer has “genuinely not made a decision to quit” yet, according to ITV’s Political Editor Robert Peston.

He has spoken to a cabinet minister today who says that the prime minister hasn’t made a decision either way. Writing in a post on X, Robert Peston said: “The minister says that if Keir Starmer’s wife Vic were to encourage him to fight on, he might just do that – though the minister assumes there is a low probability of such an outcome.

“All this says to me that my Friday judgement still holds, that the uncertainty could drag on to Tuesday, though presumably not longer.”

The intervention from party board member and former director of communications Gawain Towler comes after Reform lost Makerfield with a candidate who was criticised for his crude social media remarks about women and proudly proclaimed himself to be a “sexist”.

But with an autopsy into the defeat already underway, Reform also turned down invitations to appear on the Sunday morning politics shows, even avoiding its preferred channel GB News.

There are also claims that pressure is being put on Mr Farage to reduce the role or sideline home affairs Zia Yusuf, whose “mass deportation” rhetoric is believed to be putting middle ground voters. Mr Yusuf has also become a hate figure for more rightwing voters who have turned to Rupert Lowe’s Restore Britain.

Read more from David Maddox’s piece here:

Josh Fenton-Glynn, Labour MP for Calder Valley, has said that removing a prime minister without a general election is “the norm not the exception”.

Mr Fenton-Glynn was responding to comments by Home Office minister Mike Tapp that there should a new law forcing a general election if a party forces out its leader.

Mr Tapp proposed the changes to “stop the constant churn and focus all politicians on delivery, instead of work place politics”.

Mr Fenton-Glynn replied, saying: “Mike Tapp appears surprised that we are in a parliamentary democracy! The last two prime ministers to win an election then lose their job at the next election were Major and Wilson – course correction mid term in response to the public is the norm not the exception”.

Home Office minister Mike Tapp has retweeted a post alluding to Sir Keir Starmer’s feeling of betrayal after over 100 MPs called for his resignation after Andy Burnham’s election win in Makerfield.

The post says that a Labour source says the prime minister feels “betrayed”, according to the Politics UK account.

“He gave everything to Labour, including sacrificing much of his children’s teenage years to help make the party electable,” said the source.

“He feels deeply betrayed, especially by those he believed were loyal to him.”