POLITICIANS representing East Lothian across parties had a predictably mixed response to the news of Sir Keir Starmer’s resignation as Prime Minister.
During a press conference outside 10 Downing Street on Monday morning, he said that he accepted “with good grace” that the Labour Party no longer believed he was the right person to lead them into the next General Election, currently scheduled to take place no later than August 2029.
Sir Keir’s announcement that he would step down as party leader did not come as a shock to those keeping their eye on the shifting currents of Westminster politics, with former Greater Manchester mayor Andy Burnham looking overwhelmingly likely to take over the top job.
Some of Sir Keir's highest-ranking Cabinet ministers have themselves quit in recent months, citing leadership at the top, including Health Secretary Wes Streeting and Defence Secretary John Healey, leaving Sir Keir with a drop in backing, despite a sizeable majority achieved at the General Election just two years ago.
Douglas Alexander, who won his seat as Lothian East’s MP during that election in early July 2024 and was appointed Secretary of State for Scotland a year later, paid tribute to Sir Keir for his statement, which he said showed “dignity, grace and patriotism”.
He added that the former director of public prosecutions, knighted for services to law and criminal justice in 2014, would “long be recognised” for “rebuilding” the party, adding that Sir Keir was successful in “ridding the country of a discredited Conservative Government and the work of national renewal”.
During an interview with BBC Breakfast on Tuesday, he joined the loud chorus of party members backing Mr Burnham to become Prime Minister, citing his popularity as mayor, including with the bus network and in tackling homelessness.
He said: “I don’t think it’s simply that he’s shown himself to be a winner, particularly in Makerfield [where he won a by-election earlier this month], against Reform and the very dark and dangerous future that I think Reform will [be] for the country, but also in Manchester he’s demonstrated that economic efficiency and social justice aren’t enemies but can be allies.”
However, Paul McLennan (SNP), East Lothian Coast and Lammermuirs MSP, said that the announcement underlined “a deeper failure at the heart” of the Labour Government, which has “failed to deliver” the change promised during the campaign in 2024.
He suggested that Mr Burnham’s agenda had “the same vague rhetoric” and stated that the returning MP “cannot simply repackage” it.
Mr McLennan added: "Burnham’s rise risks looking less like a renewal and more like a carefully choreographed handover that leaves the fundamentals untouched.
"If he is serious about offering real change, he must break decisively with the failures of his predecessor.”
He believes that otherwise, it risks being a change in leader but not of direction.
Meanwhile, Kate Campbell, SNP MSP for Edinburgh Eastern, Musselburgh and Tranent, described the resignation as “a great relief to many” following what she called “an absolutely abysmal two years in government”.
She suggested that there were “no policies, no passion and no plan” to improve the lives of “ordinary folk”.
Mrs Campbell returned to the often-referenced fact that an incumbent Prime Minister would be the seventh in 10 years, with the hope that Mr Burnham might bring “a measure of calm” to the “chaos of Westminster”.
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