Starmer Bids Farewell at His Final PMQs
Sir Keir Starmer took Prime Minister’s Questions for the last time at noon, days before handing power to Andy Burnham. He said he was “proud to leave this country in better shape than I found it”, described the moment as the end of his political journey while pledging to stay on as a backbencher, and opened on a sombre note about the killing of the former MP Ann Widdecombe, calling it “chilling” that three sitting or former members had been killed during his time in Parliament. He closed by thanking staff and civil servants, told his family in the gallery he loved them, and signed off with “Goodbye”, to a cross-party standing ovation. Kemi Badenoch warned that a change of leader was no “silver bullet” for Labour but praised his support for Ukraine.
A valedictory PMQs is usually a gentle affair, and this one was doubly strange: a Prime Minister taking his leave not after an election defeat but after his own benches withdrew their confidence, handing the office to a man who was outside Parliament weeks ago. The standing ovation across party lines was the Commons observing a courtesy the politics had denied him — a dignified exit for a leader brought down from within. Starmer’s decision to lead on Widdecombe’s killing, and his plea to defend democracy, set a graver tone than the usual farewell, a reflection of a Parliament shaken by the deaths of three of its own in a decade. His claim to leave the country “in better shape” will be contested for years — a landslide majority squandered to revolt, or a leader undone by migration, the cost of living and a restive left. Watch the tone of the handover, the first acts of the Burnham government, and whether Starmer proves a quiet or a troublesome backbencher.