EXCLUSIVE: In his final newspaper interview as PM, Keir Starmer said Andy Burnham is inheriting a Labour Party in ‘good shape’ and said he believes it can win a second term in office
Keir Starmer insists Ukraine can win war in his final act
Keir Starmer says Labour can win the next general election under his successor after turning the party’s fortunes around in his six-year stint as leader.
The Prime Minister said he was “proud” of what he achieved in office and said he hands over a party in “good shape” as he prepares to bow out of Downing Street on Monday after just two years. He will be replaced as Labour leader by Andy Burnham on Friday, and will quit No10 on Monday after handing his resignation to the King.
In his final newspaper interview as PM, he told The Mirror that he believed Labour would be able to win a second term in office under Mr Burnham, as his own time in office was cut short.
He said: “I will go with good grace. I want my country to thrive, and therefore I’ll do everything to make sure there’s an orderly transition and give my full support to Andy Burnham and the whole of the government. I want the government to succeed, I want the country to succeed. And therefore my last acts as Prime Minister will be doing what I can to do that.
Keir Starmer with The Mirror’s Lizzy Buchan in Ukraine(Image: Stefan Rousseau PA)
“There is now I think a sound footing, a sound foundation, and the party can go on and win a second term, which is what I always thought we could do. We’ve built the platform to go on and win in 2029. We hand over the country and the party in good shape after six and a half years from a state where the party, as I say, it was a question of whether it would exist.
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“So I will now support the government and do everything I can to make sure that we go forward in good shape.” After more than a decade in Parliament, including two years in No10, and six-and-a-half as Labour leader, Mr Starmer said the decision to end his political career was a deeply personal one, which he took with his closest confidante, his wife Victoria.
He said: “I came into politics in 2015 to improve the lives of millions of people. I didn’t imagine when I came in that I would lead the Labour Party or be Prime Minister. But to take a decision to end my political journey is intensely personal.
“It’s a matter in the end that I felt I could only, a decision I could only take with Vic and the kids, who have been most impacted by this on this journey for six and a half years.
“I’ve been on the front line for six and a half years, I’ve had to say no to so many things that I could have done with them. And my decision to end my political career impacts them, so I wanted to be with them.
Mr Starmer arriving in Kyiv on Thursday, days before his departure from No10(Image: POOL/AFP via Getty Images)
“We talked it over during the course of the weekend, came to a clear conclusion, Vic and I, and we stand together on it as we do with every decision we’ve ever made. And we shall go on together to whatever happens next.” He admitted that life in No10 had taken a toll on his family, and he had been forced to miss spending time with his teenage son and daughter.
Appearing visibly emotional, Mr Starmer said: “It is hugely impactful. However much you try to make it not impact the family, and we all do, and I desperately try to protect Vic and the kids, there’s no doubting it has an impact on them.
“Now I have the chance to spend more time with them. And to go from what is the most high-profile job in the country, which is being Prime Minister, to what is the most important job, which is being the best husband I can to Vic, and the best dad I can to my kids.”
Mr Starmer struggled to recover from Labour’s early mistakes, including cutting the winter fuel allowance and the revolt over disability benefit cuts. His decision to name Peter Mandelson as US ambassador despite his ties to Jeffrey Epstein hung like a dark cloud over his final months in office.
But he spoke of his pride at taking a demoralised Labour party from its 2019 drubbing to a landslide win in 2024, and for stamping out the complaints of anti-semitism that dogged the party under Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership. Speaking to the Mirror from Kyiv, he said Britain’s reputation had been bolstered, along with successes on the home front – on NHS waiting lists, action to lift children out of poverty, and measures to stabilise the economy.
He also used his final days in office to push through the Hillsborough Law to prevent state cover-ups and filled the gallery of his final PMQs with bereaved families whose cases he had championed. He said: “I’ve always wanted to fight for the people who struggle to be heard and struggle to be seen. There are plenty of people with big platforms and plenty to say, particularly in politics.
“I’m interested in the people who struggle to be seen, struggle to be heard, but whose lives are hugely impacted by the decisions we can make.”
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Reflecting on his exit, he said: “I’m proud to have turned the Labour Party around, to have won a general election, and to put the party on a good footing. The question the parliamentary party are asking is not who is the right person to lead the Labour Party to victory and to change, but who is the right person to take it forward to 2029.
“They’ve answered that question.” Asked if he had another big job in him, he said: “The big job in me is being the best dad to my kids and the best husband to my wife. That is… that is a big job. And it’s a job I’m very much looking forward to.”