A Statement from the Communist Party, 22nd June, 2026.
Keir Starmer is a symptom of Britain’s political crisis, not its cause. His successor must realise that unless Labour ditches Starmer’s toxic cocktail of austerity, economic insecurity and war, the next political crisis will bring a far-right government to power.
Starmer’s resignation less than two years after a general election in which Labour won a parliamentary majority of 174 seats, confirms the failure of his authoritarian New Labour tribute act, and the increasing instability of Britain’s ruling class.
After playing the central role to undermine his predecessor Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership and trying and failing to destroy Corbyn’s political and personal reputation, Starmer outrageously claimed in his tearful resignation speech in Downing Street to have made Labour electable again, despite winning fewer votes than Corbyn in 2017 and 2019.
Labour’s 174-seat majority landslide in July 2024 was a result of widespread disgust with an exhausted and corrupt Tory government after 14 years and a splintering of right-wing voter preferences. It was not an endorsement of Starmer’s own brand of wooden managerialism.
The fact that once in office as Britain’s fifth prime minister in 10 years, Starmer maintained the fiscal rules set by his Tory predecessors, cancelled Labour’s pledge of investment in new green technologies and appeased a far right US administration by announcing he would turbocharge arms spending, made him instantly one of the most unpopular prime ministers in living memory, as the May 2026 elections confirmed.
In his resignation speech Starmer claimed to have made Britain economically better off. This flies in the face of the reality faced by working people. Two years of stagnant wages, rising inflation and crumbling public services – just as under the Tories. Starmer and his Chancellor, Rachel Reeves deepened austerity by repeatedly cutting welfare, raising taxes on workers, freezing income tax thresholds and cutting investment.
Starmer claimed to have made Britain safer. The reality is that just as under the Tories, Starmer’s government continued Britain’s shameful complicity in and support for Israel’s genocide in Palestine, war crimes in Lebanon and US imperialist wars in Syria, Yemen and Iran. Starmer’s government deepened Britain’s involvement in NATO’s proxy wars, funding and perpetuating the slaughter in Ukraine.
Starmer will be judged on his record, but it would be wrong to view him in isolation from the crisis of the British political establishment of which he is a part. Since the popular vote to leave the European Union exactly ten. Years ago, Britain’s ruling class has been paralysed and incapable of ruling in the old way. Starmer’s unpopularity is symbolic of the popular disdain for Britain’s ruling class and their efforts to serve the interests of the City of London financial sector and ensure US imperialist domination around the world.
Dumping a deeply unlikeable prime minister won’t in itself change these policies, reverse Labour’s electoral decline, or halt the rise of Reform UK and far right racist riots. Starmer’s resignation won’t address the deep crisis of working-class representation at every level of politics in Britain. Only a mass movement for fundamental change can do so.
The Communist Party calls on the trade union movement, the left and campaigning, solidarity and community organisations across Britain to come together in a united front to fight for an end to austerity, privatisation and war and win real change for the working class in this country and internationally.
Only a broad alliance of this type, founded on left policies – ending support for forever wars from Ukraine, to Palestine, Lebanon, Iran and Yemen; investing in a much-needed green new deal and restoring full trade union rights – can address the social and economic crisis facing workers and shift the balance of power in our favour.
The ousting of Starmer offers the left and the trade union movement the opportunity to strike back and reverse the damage caused by 50 years of neoliberalism. The Communist Party will work with friends and allies to do so. We call on organised labour and the mass movements for peace and against war and austerity to seize this chance and build the united front against racism, austerity and war.
ENDS.