For Europe’s center-left, the 2024 election of the U.K.’s Keir Starmer as prime minister was looked at as proof that “dull competence” still had a constituency. It did not work out as planned.

His landslide victory after 14 years of conservative rule was based on a bet that moving past ideological theatrics, restoring institutional trust, rebuilding ties with Europe, and waiting for voters to tire of populism would succeed. But Starmer’s resignation Monday revealed that even the best-laid plans can be overwhelmed by the forces they were meant to contain. 

Starmer’s downfall was based on multiple factors, including an economic slowdown tied to global conflicts, rising energy costs, and higher tariffs, and scandal connecting members of his government to the Epstein Files. 

But the biggest factor may be that the same global pressures that produced Brexit and Donald Trump’s first election a decade ago and strengthened nationalist and populist parties across Europe never disappeared. Mass migration, economic stagnation, the role of Muslims, distrust of elites, and arguments over free speech and national identity continued to set the terms of political debate in the U.K. as elsewhere.

“Every decision I’ve taken was about putting the country I love first,” Starmer said Monday in announcing his decision to step down. “That is why I will resign as leader of the Labour Party.”

Starmer formally stepped down as prime minister and head of the center-left Labour Party, though he will continue as a caretaker prime minister until a successor can be named, probably in July or August. 

That means the next U.K. prime minister will be the country’s seventh in 10 years. But his departure from the stage is more than a domestic setback. 

The United Kingdom is a nuclear-armed Group of Seven (G7) economy, a founding member of the NATO alliance, one of Ukraine’s most important backers in that country’s war against Russia and a country that had just begun to repair its relationship with the European Union after the 2016 Brexit, short for British exit, vote.

The resignation of the leader known as “No-Drama Starmer” adds another layer of instability to a period already defined by the Russia-Ukraine war, the Israel-U.S.-led conflict against Iran, uncertainty over U.S. global commitments, migration issues and the strengthening of nationalist parties in many parts of Europe. 

The leading candidate to replace Starmer is 56-year-old former Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham, who stepped down from that role Friday to take a seat in Parliament, a position that makes him eligible to become prime minister. Burnham had previously been in Parliament from 2001 to 2017.

Burnham was little known internationally until he emerged as a candidate who might challenge Starmer for the Labour Party leadership role last year. While Starmer was a center-left technocrat, Burnham is more of a traditional Labour figure who, in the past, has stood for stronger public control of utilities and more emphasis on affordable public transport, housing, and cost-of-living relief. 

Burnham’s role as a likely successor initially spooked financial markets, which dropped after Starmer’s announcement Monday before regaining lost ground and ending the trading day about even with Friday’s close.

The impact is even less certain in the European Union, where leaders have been wary of the U.K.’s gradual realignment, but where Starmer had become an unlikely standard-bearer for the traditional European center-left parties. For now, European leaders have been applauding Starmer’s two years in office.

“It can take many leaders years to grow into the statesman you became in just two years,” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen wrote on social media Monday. “European and Ukrainian security is stronger because of you. Thank you, dear Keir.”