Andy Burnham becomes Britain’s new Prime Minister after Keir Starmer resigns

Andy Burnham is the UK’s new Prime Minister, taking over from Keir Starmer as the country’s seventh leader since the Brexit vote in 2016.

The former Mayor of Greater Manchester accepted an invitation to form a new government in a meeting with King Charles, shortly after Sir Keir formally told the monarch he is resigning.

Sir Keir quit with a speech outside Number 10 before formally offering his resignation to the King at Buckingham Palace.

Mr Burnham will soon begin appointing the top members of his Cabinet, with uncertainty still swirling around his picks for roles including Chancellor, Home Secretary and Foreign Secretary.

In his maiden speech to crowds outside Number 10, Mr Burnham said his first instruction will be to ‘end rough sleeping in our country’, and he will set out a ten-year plan to help with the cost of living and give people ‘breathing space’.

The moment marks the culmination of a spectacularly busy month for Mr Burnham, since he was confirmed as winner of the Makerfield by-election on June 19.

After spending the past nine years as Manchester’s mayor, he has been introducing himself to Labour MPs – many of whom he had never met before.

He became their leader at a special conference in London on Friday, after a contest where he faced no serious opposition.

The new PM has also been getting familiar with a Westminster Parliament that he has described as ‘more fragmented’ and ‘unhappier’ than the one he left in 2017.

Meanwhile, he has been dropping hints about his plans for power in a fewinterviews.

It is expected that his government will bring in new measures to help Brits struggling with the cost of living in the coming days

In an interview with the Sunday Times, Burnham said the country ‘will see early moves to help’, adding: ‘It’s all about helping people.’

Yesterday morning, he confirmed one of his first big decisions – scrapping the digital ID plans that were championed by Starmer’s government in what he called a ‘reset of priorities’.

He has also argued for a change in culture at Westminster, switching to a more collaborative and less combative approach between different parties and factions.

But the country’s latest leader faces a raft of serious challenges as he enters office, including weak economic growth and a war in Iran that is on the verge of spiralling out of control again.

He will have to face finding the funding for the Defence Investment Plan, tackling the NEET crisis highlighted by the Milburn Review, and reforming the social care system.

In the Makerfield by-election campaign and his media appearances since, Burnham has argued for devolution as the best means of pulling the UK out of its rut.

Speaking at the People’s History Museum in Manchester last month, he said he would set up an ‘extended operation’ of Downing Street in the city, dubbed ‘No 10 North’.

This office would be the ‘nerve centre for a rewired Britain’, he said, acting as the ‘conduit’ for redistributing power from Whitehall to Mayors and other regional leaders around the country.

However, in his speech outside No 10 today is he expected to say he is ‘acutely conscious’ that he is the UK’s fifth prime minister in the past four years.

He will say this underlines why the country requires more stability and responsibility in politics.

If he does not choose to go to the public early for a snap general election – which would give him an opportunity to run on his own manifesto, rather than Labour’s 2024 one – he will have three years before the next one is due.

With his party still languishing far below Reform UK in the polls, Burnham will need to pull off a remarkable feat of resurrection if he is to avoid the same fate as his short-term predecessors.