What to know about the political chaos engulfing the UK's Labour Party and efforts to unseat Starmer

LONDON — British Prime Minister Keir Starmer insists he is getting on with the job of governing after taking blame for disastrous local election results for his Labour Party that have put his leadership in jeopardy.

The embattled prime minister is widely expected to face a leadership challenge — but no one has formally launched one yet. So Starmer is carrying on with speeches, Cabinet meetings, policy announcements and all the other actions of an increasingly zombie prime minister.

The last two weeks have been devastating for Starmer, who led the party to a landslide victory less than two years ago. Scores of Labour lawmakers have called for him to resign, and former allies are plotting how to oust him.

One Cabinet minister, Wes Streeting, resigned as health secretary last week and announced he will run in a Labour leadership contest if one is triggered.

Another would-be rival, Greater Manchester mayor Andy Burnham, is seeking to be elected to Parliament within weeks so he can challenge Starmer for the Labour leadership.

Starmer insists he will not resign and will fight any challenge to his leadership. Under U.K. political rules, whoever took over from Starmer as party leader would also become prime minister, without the need for a national election.

A looming special election with huge consequences

The question of who could succeed Starmer as Britain's next prime minister could be decided by some 76,000 voters in a small election in northwest England.

Burnham is a popular mayor backed by many Labour members to replace Starmer as prime minister. But to do so, he has to become a House of Commons lawmaker.

That became a real possibility last week when Josh Simons, the Labour lawmaker for the seat of Makerfield near Manchester, stepped down, triggering a special election.

Burnham said he would run, and was confirmed as Labour's candidate on Tuesday.

He has already made clear that he's running not just to represent Makerfield, but to turn Labour's fortunes around.

“A vote for me will be a vote to change Labour, because Labour needs to change if we are to regain people’s trust,” Burnham said in a speech Monday. “I know what my party has offered in the past has simply not been good enough.”

A date for the special election is due to be announced this week. It is likely to be held on June 18 or June 25.

Brexit rears its head again

While hugely popular and an experienced Labour politician, the 56-year-old Burnham is by no means certain to win the seat.

The constituency was long a safe Labour seat, but like many parts of the U.K. growing numbers of voters have turned to the anti-immigrant, EU-skeptic Reform UK party.

Many voters in Makerfield backed leaving the EU in the Brexit referendum a decade ago. In recent local elections, Reform won all the wards in the constituency and secured around half the vote.

Burnham’s position is made tougher after Streeting, the other leading rival to unseat Starmer, on Saturday described Brexit as a “catastrophic mistake” and said the U.K. should one day rejoin the EU.

Streeting’s speech was widely seen as a direct challenge to Burnham, who has previously expressed support for eventually rejoining the European Union but must tread a fine line if he wants to win in Makerfield.

The issue is a tricky one for Labour. Labour members are largely anti-Brexit, which failed to deliver the benefits its backers promised. But Starmer has been reluctant to reopen a debate that bitterly divided the country. He has ruled out seeking to reenter the EU, or to rejoin the bloc’s customs union or single market.

Reform is likely to focus on immigration in the upcoming special election, and its leader Nigel Farage, who played a key role in campaigning for Brexit, wasted no time in attacking Burnham. Writing in the Daily Express Monday, Farage said Burnham “wants to drag you closer to the EU.”

Burnham tried to shut that down, saying: “The last thing we should do right now is rerun those arguments.”

Reform announced that its candidate in Makerfield will be plumber Robert Kenyon, who came second to Labour in the constituency in the 2024 election.

Labour turmoil prevents it from capitalizing on rival party stumbles

News of Starmer's troubles overshadowed the woes of his rivals on the right and left.

A parliamentary watchdog last week opened an investigation into whether Farage failed to report a 5 million pound ($6.7 million) gift from a donor.

Farage has said the money from Thailand-based cryptocurrency investor Christopher Harborne came before he ran for Parliament, was not related to politics and was for his personal security. He later told the Sun tabloid the gift was for campaigning for Brexit.

Sky News reported that Farage bought a 1.4 million pound ($1.9 million) house after receiving the money. But Farage said he bought the house with money earned from being on the reality show, “I’m A Celebrity… Get Me Out Of Here!”

Meanwhile, the leader of the Green Party, which has also siphoned a share of Labour's vote, admitted he didn't vote in the recent local elections.

Zack Polanski was moving at the time and ran out of time to register at a new address, a party spokesperson said.

Polanski is also facing scrutiny for not paying taxes on a houseboat where he had lived in east London.