00:00Okay, back to the UK now. With Andy Burnham winning a parliamentary seat on Thursday,
00:05Keir Starmer has been under immense political pressure to step down as UK Prime Minister.
00:09Though he said publicly he will not walk away from a leadership contest, it does appear now that may not
00:14be the case.
00:15Earlier this morning, UK Minister Peter Kyle told Sky News that Starmer was reflecting on the political realities he finds
00:21himself in.
00:22The Guardian also reporting that it is expected that Starmer will announce his departure on Monday
00:26for more on Keir Starmer and his potential resignation from London.
00:30We are joined by Daybreak Europe anchor Lizzie Burden.
00:32Lizzie, great to see you.
00:34We are trying to navigate all of this over the course of the morning, including the wild indelations of British
00:39politics.
00:40I mentioned Peter Kyle a moment ago.
00:42You had a marquee moment with him about a week ago when you broke the news to him the Defence
00:46Secretary was leaving Keir Starmer's cabinet.
00:50Talk about his role and the way in which we are getting some insight here into the kind of tenuous
00:54position that Keir Starmer is in.
00:56Well, thank you, David, for having me.
00:59Peter Kyle, the Business Secretary, is an arch-loyalist of Keir Starmer's.
01:03And when we had that conversation, he was convinced that Keir Starmer wasn't going anywhere.
01:09It is a very different tone we're hearing from the Business Secretary this morning.
01:13As you say, talking about the Prime Minister considering the political realities.
01:18He is at his official country residence of Chequers this weekend.
01:21And it's been said that he wanted to talk to his wife and digest the situation over the weekend.
01:27You cite that Observer report.
01:29Many in the media now hear speculating that the podium is going to be outside No. 10 Downing Street tomorrow.
01:35And Starmer are expected to lay out a timetable for his resignation.
01:41How do you see that timetable playing out?
01:43Do you think that that will happen almost immediately?
01:46Or do you see him setting up like kind of an extended exit to make sure that there is structure
01:50in place and a predecessor in place to come in after him,
01:53given how many prime ministers the UK has gone through in the last couple of years in an effort to
01:58find some sort of stability there?
02:00Yeah, look, if we're going to get a new prime minister, this would be the seventh in the 10 years
02:04since the Brexit anniversary.
02:06It really makes you think that, ironically, we are seeing the political instability that the continent was once known for.
02:13In terms of that timetable ahead, it depends who's going to be taking over.
02:18Is it going to be Andy Burnham, the former mayor of Manchester who won that seat in northwest England,
02:23the vote on Thursday, the result announced on Friday?
02:27Or is it going to still be a leadership contest, not a coronation?
02:32So the likes of West Streeting, the health secretary may yet want to throw their hat into the ring.
02:37But the Labour Party might not want to have this chaos unfolding in front of the nation,
02:43which the Conservatives, remember, were known for under Boris Johnson, Liz Truss, Rishi Sunak.
02:49They may want it to be more orderly and Keir Starmer wanting to preserve his dignity.
02:55In terms of the timetable, does it happen immediately?
02:58Does it happen over a longer period?
03:00Andy Burnham might want to have the summer to set out his policy agenda so that he can come in
03:06as prime minister for the Labour Party conference in September.
03:09I just keep thinking about the Liz Truss versus the head of lettuce.
03:12Do we need to pick a different pick a different produce?
03:16Lizzie, for those joining the program already in progress, how did we get here?
03:20How did Keir Starmer sort of lose the faith of those in his party?
03:23How did his grip on governing become so loose?
03:27What happened over the course of his tenure?
03:30Well, of course, there has been the long concern that he simply isn't charismatic enough to hold the attention of
03:36his party and of the nation.
03:39Personally, his ratings have been sliding.
03:41That landslide vote that he won back in 2024 seemed more as an anti-conservative vote than a pro-Keir
03:48Starmer vote.
03:49And then the difficulties have only mounted.
03:52We had the Bloomberg investigation revealing the connections between Peter Mandelson, the former U.K. ambassador to Washington,
04:00and Jeffrey Epstein and the appointment process into Keir Starmer's government.
04:05And then most recently, we talked about the defence secretary, John Healy, resigning.
04:11That was because Healy perceived that the defence spending in a time of war was inadequate.
04:16And then the real pressure has come in the past couple of days because of Andy Burnham winning this special
04:23election up north in England,
04:26whereby he won more votes than all the other parties combined.
04:31So you can't argue that he was simply the beneficiary of a split vote on the right.
04:37And many Labour MPs now saying, is this the man who should lead us into the next general election against
04:43Nigel Farage's Reform UK party?
04:46It seems like to many of them, reform may have actually reached a peak now.
04:52And that is a question that we're asking because Andy Burnham was the face of Labour.
04:56It wasn't a question that was being asked when Labour got pretty much decimated in the local elections only in
05:03May.
05:04So do they want to have a new leader going into that general election?
05:08Well, according to our reporting, the majority of Keir Starmer's cabinet now want,
05:14will they see it as inevitable that Starmer is going to be replaced by Burnham?
05:19And that includes the foreign secretary, Yvette Cooper.
05:21That's interesting. I want to talk to you about Burnham.
05:23But first, I'm going to play you some sound from his victory speech.
05:32We have an opportunity to turn the tide, to make the country feel like it's working again,
05:39to make people see that politics can make a positive difference, to make people feel hope again.
05:47That is the main thing I think we need in this country right now, for people to feel a sense
05:53of hope.
05:55Look, it's always easier to be the candidate than the principal.
05:59But you mentioned that Keir Starmer is deeply unpopular.
06:03One of his big liabilities seems to be his inability to communicate.
06:06People criticise him for just being boring and not being able to get even the victories across.
06:11Is this something Burnham does better? And what are his potential liabilities?
06:15That's what's the perception of Andy Burnham, that he is somebody who is not necessarily more charismatic,
06:21but is just a more normal guy.
06:23He's known as the King of the North.
06:25He's been extremely popular as mayor of Greater Manchester.
06:29The question now is whether he can translate that on a national scale,
06:33because he can't just be a professional northerner as the prime minister.
06:36He's got to represent the whole of the United Kingdom.
06:39I should know I'm a northerner myself.
06:42But look, for markets, those comments when he said that the Westminster shouldn't be in hock to the bond market
06:49are really difficult to forget.
06:52Since then, he's tried to walk that back.
06:54He said that he was misunderstood, that he would follow the chancellor's fiscal rules.
06:59But then his team privately saying that he wouldn't reappoint Rachel Reeves as chancellor.
07:04When he's been mayor of Manchester, there's talk of Manchesterism.
07:09But that means many things to many people.
07:11It could mean more collaboration between the public and private sectors.
07:16It could mean more devolution to local governments.
07:18But again, he isn't going to be in local government.
07:20So is he going to really want that?
07:22There's an old joke in Westminster that a brownite, a Blairite, a Corbynite walk into a bar
07:30and the bartender says, what are you having, Mr. Burnham?
07:33Because over his long career in politics, he has worn many hats under the different previous leaders of the Labour
07:40Party.
07:41We just don't know which Andy Burnham we would get.
07:44But if he is saying that he's going to have all this change when it comes to his team and
07:50his policy,
07:51his mandate is going to come into question.
07:54So do we need another general election?
07:55So do we need another election?
07:56So do we need another election for flashbacks?
07:56So do we need to do we need to do in order,
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