Keir Starmer has resigned as Prime Minister – farewell to our chief recruiting sergeant

Max Thompson, Campaigns Officer

26 June 2026

At 9:30am on Monday, Sir Keir Starmer walked out of Downing Street’s famous black door and announced that he was resigning. This followed months of speculation, ministerial resignations and apathy from the Parliamentary Labour Party.

Since he came to power in July 2024, Sir Keir has led the most authoritarian government in more than a generation, unleashing an unprecedented assault on free speech. Indeed, he seems determined to make social media censorship his legacy and tried desperately – at breakneck speed – to curb our ancient right to trial by jury.

Throughout his time as Prime Minister, Sir Keir has proved to be an effective recruiting sergeant for the Free Speech Union, with our membership growing from 14,000 at the time of the last General Election to more than 45,000 today. The Free Speech Union would go as far to say that Sir Keir has been a far more successful recruiting sergeant for us than as Prime Minister.

But there is little reason to believe things will improve under his likely successor, Andy Burnham.

It is believed that the former MP for Makerfield and former head of Labour Together, Josh Simons, who resigned so Burnham could fight a by-election, is set for a plum job at the heart of Downing Street. The Free Speech Union recently exposed Labour’s ‘misinformation mafia’ that Simons led, targeting journalists and others that challenged Starmer’s technocratic managerialism. We anticipate an escalation in Labour’s efforts to suppress dissenting speech on social media in the forthcoming Representation of the People Bill, assuming Burnham doesn’t abandon the legislative programme outlined in the King’s Speech.

Burnham is also keen on championing a ‘fully trans-inclusive’ ban on ‘conversion therapy’ – which was announced by Starmer’s outgoing government this week – which may mean criminalising parents who ‘misgender’ their confused adolescent children or who withhold consent from their children embarking on irreversible medical pathways.

Sir Keir gave off a curtain-twitching, head-of-compliance vibe that put the fear of God into anyone who cares about free speech and Andy Burnham is a bit more bloke-ish. But we expect the King of the North to start wearing the authoritarian landyard over his Everton top within days of taking power.

No doubt there will be numerous other assaults on free speech which we’ll be keeping a close eye on.

But for now, Sir Keir’s legacy will be that of an enemy of free speech.

Watch General Secretary of the Free Speech Union, Lord Young, react to Sir Keir Starmer’s resignation here.