Starmer Warns Burnham Diplomacy Cannot Be Delegated
Sir Keir Starmer used his first interview since resigning to warn his successor that foreign affairs cannot be set aside, saying of Andy Burnham’s domestic-first pitch: “It is not sensible to think you can just separate these two things out.” Asked whether a prime minister could spend less time on diplomacy, he replied: “No, I don’t think it is possible.” He called the decision to quit “intensely personal” and “really, really tough”, taken over two days with his family at Chequers.
The interview, marking what would have been his second anniversary in office this weekend, is both valediction and warning shot: Starmer claims he “saved the Labour Party” from a state he describes as politically, financially and morally bankrupt, places his 2024 landslide alongside Attlee’s and Blair’s, and says MPs removed him because they no longer believed he could win the next election. He will stay on as an MP, “keeping my mouth shut”. The diplomacy warning lands directly on Burnham’s “No 10 North” prospectus. Watch whether Burnham answers the challenge in his first days — the in-tray (NATO, Iran, Washington) will answer it for him otherwise.