# Labour Party The **Labour Party** is the United Kingdom's centre-left party and its governing party. It was founded on **27 February 1900** as the Labour Representation Committee, the political arm of the trade-union movement. Its Prime Ministers include Clement Attlee, Harold Wilson, [[Tony Blair]], Gordon Brown, [[Keir Starmer]] and, since **20 July 2026**, [[Andy Burnham]]. ## 2024–26: landslide to leadership crisis - **The landslide.** Under Starmer, Labour won **411 seats** in July 2024, on just **33.7%** of the vote, with a majority of 172. The gap between seats and votes made the majority wide and shallow. - **The slide.** Reform UK overtook Labour in the polls during 2025. Deputy leader Angela Rayner resigned on 5 September 2025 over underpaid stamp duty. Lucy Powell won the deputy leadership on 25 October 2025, 54% to Bridget Phillipson's 46%, on a turnout of 16.6%. - **May 2026.** Labour took about 17% in the local elections and lost **38 councils** and about 1,500 councillors, and suffered a historic defeat in Wales. Wes Streeting resigned from the cabinet on 14 May and John Healey on 11 June. - **Makerfield.** Labour MP Josh Simons stood down so that Burnham, then Mayor of Greater Manchester, could return to the Commons. Burnham ran on "elect me, and I will try to oust the prime minister," and won the by-election on **18 June 2026** with 54.8% to Reform's 34.5%. - **The handover.** Starmer announced his resignation on **22 June**. Burnham was the only candidate, nominated by 379 of 403 Labour MPs, and was declared leader unopposed on 17 July. He became Prime Minister on 20 July. ## The Burnham government His cabinet of 21 July 2026 brought back both cabinet ministers who had resigned that spring: John Healey as Chancellor and Wes Streeting at Defence. Louise Haigh became Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, described as deputy prime minister in all but name; Shabana Mahmood is Home Secretary; [[Ed Miliband]] became Foreign Secretary. Rachel Reeves, David Lammy and Peter Kyle left. Early measures include scrapping VAT on household electricity from 1 October 2026 and a £2 bus-fare cap for 2027. The change worked in the polls, at least at first. Early-October 2026 averages had Labour back in first place at about 26–28%, ahead of Reform (about 23%) and the Conservatives (about 19–20%). ## Why it is in this vault Labour is the incumbent that [[Reform UK]]'s insurgency is built against, and its 2024 majority was won on the lowest vote share of any Commons majority. The right's case against it runs through the [[Kemi Badenoch]] and [[Nigel Farage]] pages. For the left's account of how the 1970s breakdown of the postwar consensus, Labour's corporatist model included, opened the way for law-and-order politics, see [[Policing the Crisis]]. ## See Also - [[Andy Burnham]] · [[Keir Starmer]] · [[Ed Miliband]] · [[Tony Blair]] - [[UK Government Org Chart]]: the current cabinet structure - [[Conservative Party (UK)]] · [[Reform UK]] · [[United Kingdom]]