Shift in dealings with Washington not likely to reset once Trump leaves Oval Office, former PM says

The UK and other European nations must draw closer together as the US becomes a less-reliable partner, Keir Starmer has said in his first significant political intervention since leaving No 10.

The former prime minister warned European leaders of the threat posed by Russia, among others, and said the shift in relations with Washington during Donald Trump’s presidency was not likely to reset once he leaves the Oval Office. He accused them of being caught out by these new realities twice already.

The prime minister is correct to judge the time is right to push for closer links with the EU. The political risk is far outweighed by the potential rewards

The German philosopher GWF Hegel famously evoked the owl of Minerva when discussing the historical wisdom that comes through hindsight. This autumn, she has flown tirelessly over the landscape of British politics. Party conference season was dominated by conflicting Labour and Conservative accounts of the 1970s and 80s. And a decade after the United Kingdom voted to leave the European Union, Andy Burnham this week abandoned all equivocation over the damage – economic but also strategic – that resulted from that decision.

Having declared that it is time to “face up to the reality that Brexit has done more harm than good”, Mr Burnham told the House of Commons on Monday that it would be a “dereliction of duty” not to explore all options for closer relations with Brussels. Though he confirmed that in this parliament he will honour the red lines in Sir Keir Starmer’s Labour manifesto, all bets will subsequently be off.

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Damit setzt sie sich in dem Londoner Wahlkreis gegen die Grüne Partei durch – ein Erfolg für Keir Starmers Nachfolger Andy Burnham.

Zack Polanski kämpft an diesem Donnerstag in einem Londoner Wahlkreis um den Sitz des Ex-Premiers im Unterhaus. Er ist jüdisch und in Israel seit ein paar Tagen Persona non grata.

Die österreichischen Sozialdemokraten drängen ihren Parteichef und Vizekanzler Andreas Babler zum Rückzug. Was bedeutet das für die Regierungskoalition in Wien?

Critics say scrapping of plans, which aimed to increase judge-alone trials to deliver swifter justice, leaves court system and victims vulnerable

Ministers have scrapped plans that would have slashed the number of jury trials in England and Wales and replaced them with a judge sitting alone.

The proposals had sparked a fierce backlash from lawyers, who have welcomed the U-turn. But the victims’ commissioner expressed concern about the abandonment of measures drawn up by the then justice secretary, David Lammy, under Keir Starmer’s government, to tackle the record backlog in the courts.

Kehrt Großbritannien in die Europäische Union zurück? In einer emotionalen Rede auf seinem ersten Parteitag als Premier deutet Andy Burnham diese Möglichkeit an. Auch innenpolitisch gibt er dem Land Diskussionsstoff.

The deputy leader wants the party to take advantage of a split on the right and not be embarrassed to show its values

Labour must “reunite the progressive voter coalition” if it is to take advantage of a split on the right and win the next election, the party’s deputy leader has said.

Lucy Powell, who won the race to be deputy leader 12 months ago with a warning that Labour was losing the fight to be heard as Reform UK surged, said the government now had a second chance under Andy Burnham.

The new prime minister has declared he wants to end 40 years of neoliberalism. But is he really prepared to be that radical?

In May 2025, when Keir Starmer was still prime minister, Labour politicians, campaigners and journalists gathered at the Ministry of Sound in London to watch a series of panel talks and presentations illuminated by the lucid glow of club lights. The day-long event was organised by a campaign group called Compass, and the subjects included child poverty, the Murdoch-owned media and the rise of the radical right.

“We felt as though the Labour government was failing, and needed to be pulled into the 21st century,” Neal Lawson, the founder of Compass, told me. The Starmer government’s support for the Conservatives’ two-child benefit cap, its equivocating stance on Gaza and its emulation of far-right rhetoric – crystallised in a speech on immigration, during which the prime minister suggested Britain risked becoming an “island of strangers” – were causing Labour supporters to rapidly desert their party. “The Starmer project was so obviously intellectually bankrupt. He was personally so disinterested in ideas and big thinking that I thought, this is never going to fly,” Lawson said.

In New York treffen sich erstmals der neue britische Premierminister Burnham und US-Präsident Trump. Die Beziehung der Länder ist belastet. Doch jetzt soll alles besser werden.

US president says British PM has a ‘lot of assets on his side’ as pair meet at UN in New York

Donald Trump has praised Andy Burnham as a “natural businessperson” and said the UK was “more up” than under Keir Starmer. But he berated the UK for its decision to give up the Chagos Islands.

In their first face-to-face meeting, Trump gave a warm assessment of the relationship, saying he thought Burnham had a “lot of assets on his side” and would be a “great prime minister”, adding: “We talked about everything from Rolls-Royce to energy to immigration – we covered a lot.”

Wife of former PM takes part in designer Edeline Lee’s show inspired by the Greek myth of Sisyphus

Victoria Starmer has taken part in a London fashion week show, in one of her first public appearances since her husband, Keir Starmer, stepped down as prime minister.

Lady Starmer appeared at Sunday’s Edeline Lee show. The London-based, Canadian British designer’s clothes are a favourite of the Princess of Wales, and have also been worn by celebrities including singer Taylor Swift and actor and screenwriter Phoebe Waller-Bridge.

It is the first time the PM has used No 10 North to host an overseas visit

Micheál Martin, the taoiseach (Irish PM), thanked Andy Burnham for his stance on Israel as the two men met at No 10 North today.

Support for the Palestinian cause is particularly strong in Ireland because of its historical experience of colonialism, and, in a reference to the sanctions on West Bank settlements imposed by Burnham’s government, Martin said:

I think for the United Kingdom under your leadership to take the stance that it’s taken, I think, is important for … standing up for humanitarian values and justice and fulfilling the rights of all in the Middle East to security, to peace and to some decent future for their children and generations to come.

Formed in 1999, the UK Youth Parliament (UKYP) sees more than 300 children aged 11 to 18 democratically elected by their peers to represent young people in their area, who then debate and campaign on a variety of issues.

Once a year, they hold a debate in the House of Commons chamber.

Aid to lower-income countries fell by almost 7%, while higher-income countries saw their share of Britain’s aid budget increase

The world’s poorest countries were worst hit by British aid cuts under Keir Starmer’s government, while higher-income countries saw their share of aid increase, new figures reveal.

The latest figures released by the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office show a 6.7% decrease in funding to the least-developed countries and low-income countries, amounting to cuts of £118m.

Surely that’s the lesson the Reform polling furore should teach us. Politics should be about actually helping people, not mastering the line on a graph

Solemn faces all round. We will listen. We will learn. We will hone and improve. Yes, it’s time for the latest bout of profound soul-searching in the UK polling industry following the allegations raised by the recent Channel 4 investigation that a polling firm reportedly failed to declare that three polls it published before the local elections in May were commissioned by Reform. By now these reckonings are becoming a regular occurrence in the wake of big elections: pollsters gather in a room, nibble biscuits, ritually self-flagellate, and pledge to learn all the right lessons from the electorate they’ve just catastrophically misread.

Yet for all its very public ignominies, political polling is one of those rare and precious industries that somehow manages to keep failing upwards. You might think that after botching the 2015 and 2017 general elections, the 2016 Brexit vote and the 2021 London mayoral poll, we might have learned better than to trust in the mystical magic graph. In this parallel universe Keir Starmer is now sitting on a colossal 318-seat majority, as forecast by Survation in its final MRP poll on the eve of the 2024 general election, overstating the actual result by a mere 144 parliamentary seats.

Jonathan Liew is a Guardian columnist

Party leader, who will contest Starmer’s former seat of Holborn and St Pancras, says gas drilling has come up on doorstep

Zack Polanski has said a vote for him in the upcoming Holborn and St Pancras byelection is a vote against the government’s reported plans to greenlight a North Sea gasfield.

The leader of the Green party in England and Wales, who was selected on Friday to contest the London seat, also said he was considering building a personal stockpile for the extreme weather predicted with the arrival of the biggest El Niño in 1,000 years, a meteorological phenomenon that supercharges floods and droughts.

The Greens appeal to young and progressive voters here on defence, rent controls and North Sea oil. The Burnham bounce may be about to hit an obstacle

You might think a byelection showdown between two progressive parties is unimportant when the deep struggle for the national heart is between the right bloc and the left – but the result in Holborn and St Pancras matters. It matters for Andy Burnham and Labour because this is a test of the Burnham bounce: he saw off the right in Makerfield – can he win over the left too? Can he show he has enthusiastic approval from voters in southern constituencies as well as those in the north?

For the Greens it matters almost existentially because failing here could send them and their leader, Zack Polanski, back to the political fringes. Holborn and St Pancras, neighbouring Westminster, was vacated (vengefully) by Keir Starmer last week. This plum forever-Labour constituency has attracted 96 Labour applications for selection day on Wednesday, though not, it seems, nationally recognised names.

Polly Toynbee is a Guardian columnist

Chancellor ducks questions on whether he will have to raise taxes but says he will stick firmly to fiscal rules

John Healey has said boosting economic growth will be his defining mission as chancellor as he warned Labour had to “be honest” about the need to control public spending at next month’s budget.

In his first big speech since taking the job in July, Healey said the top priority for his 28 October budget would be to support stronger growth across the UK while sticking firmly to the government’s fiscal rules.

The PM’s warmth and feelgood policies, such as scrapping VAT on energy bills and a taskforce looking at political donations, offer something rare: hope

Of all the epithets thrown at a new prime minister, “people-pleaser” bounces off Andy Burnham. After all, the polls have him with a favourability rating of +13, making him the only party leader who scores above zero. His manner as he responded to all 125 of his questioners on his first Commons appearance this week had a warmth and empathy that his predecessor lacked. It’s a natural timbre, a good bedside manner for an uneasy country.

Keir Starmer’s rating as he left office was -36. He was defenestrated precisely because of his unpopularity. That baffled his allies, but his ratings crashed early into an electoral death zone from which no leader returns. His revenge comes in giving Labour a potentially awkward byelection confrontation with Zack Polanski: although, just as Burnham defeated the right in Makerfield, any candidate under his leadership stands a good chance of defeating the Greens in Holborn and St Pancras.

Polly Toynbee is a Guardian columnist

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‘U-turn’ doesn’t do justice to the myriad ways he found to break a pledge. Now the former PM is resigning as an MP, why did I have such high hopes?

Keir Starmer exits the British political stage as he entered it: doing the exact opposite of the thing he said he was going to do. It’s only 10 weeks since he pledged to remain as MP for Holborn and St Pancras until the next election, despite stepping down as prime minister. That’s plainly the decent course of action: a dedicated Labour man wouldn’t want to force a byelection. Even if it’s a slam dunk for the party, it inevitably draws focus and resources from more important matters. Someone who takes the business of representing constituents even a 10th as seriously as all MPs say they do would feel that the honour of those votes should be repaid.

It’s a pretty boring life for an ex-PM turned backbencher. You have to keep your counsel as a large amount of blame is tacitly shovelled your way, while keeping your opinions to yourself. But that second requirement was the one thing Starmer was really good at. Once it transpired that the opinions he said out loud were open to endless revision and denial, I was never able to figure out what the real ones were.

Zoe Williams is a Guardian columnist