Labour applauds PM they just mercilessly sh*t canned

So, Keir Starmer is stepping down as PM. And he’s doing so with a round of applause from the Labour MPs who just unceremoniously sacked him:

Downing Street has just published a photo of the cabinet applauding Sir Keir Starmer at their final meeting this morning. pic.twitter.com/a1eXYGnmnY

— Ben Bloch (@realBenBloch) July 15, 2026

We don’t think this latest display will enamour voters to Labour. Then again, they don’t seem to care about winning back public support. If they did, Andy Burnham wouldn’t be delivering continuity Starmerism.

Clapped out

Before we get into it, let’s remind ourselves what Labour MPs were doing after Burnham won the Makerfield by-election:

🚨 PICTURED: Andy Burnham takes a selfie with Labour MPs pic.twitter.com/BbiHgIJwTm

— Politics UK (@PolitlcsUK) June 22, 2026

Parliament had just sworn Burnham in when the above was taken, having travelled up from Manchester on a train pursued by media helicopters. Starmer stepped down earlier the same day, clearly sensing the mood. It’s hard to imagine a more humiliating spectacle than having all your MPs fawn over your replacement like this. And now those same MPs are acting as follows:

Labour were going to get 15% in a general election with this man.

🤣 pic.twitter.com/B0ldoxqlVg

— Aaron Bastani (@AaronBastani) July 15, 2026

There was also much joking between Starmer and Kemi Badenoch – the other head of the Labour-Tory duopoly:

🚨 WATCH: Kemi Badenoch and Keir Starmer exchange further friendly remarks in his final PMQs

Badenoch: "He might not have answered the questions I asked him, but at least he turned up"

Starmer: "I've answered – or at least given answers – 2,800 times" #PMQs pic.twitter.com/iBcWoOAKvF

— Politics UK (@PolitlcsUK) July 15, 2026

To be fair, this next comment was about as funny as it ever gets at Prime Minister’s Questions:

🚨 WATCH: Kemi Badenoch says the "country deserves" a televised debate between Count Binface and Nigel Farage

Starmer: "My advice to everyone is to put your vote in the bin" #PMQs pic.twitter.com/2OLMJqlMJX

— Politics UK (@PolitlcsUK) July 15, 2026

Ed Davey also praised Starmer:

🚨 WATCH: Lib Dem leader Ed Davey praises Keir Starmer as a "true patriot" as he pays tribute to him in his final PMQs #PMQs pic.twitter.com/LzPvMh3TWe

— Politics UK (@PolitlcsUK) July 15, 2026

You can say this is just people being polite, but the public will see it as another example of the chumocracy. Or they would if they watched Prime Minister’s Questions, anyway, which they don’t, because no one ever answers anything.

Labour — Starmergeddon

There’s an old proverb that goes:

If you sit by the river for long enough, you will see the body of your enemy float by

This phenomenon is one of two things that makes politics bearable (the other being occasionally getting stuff done). And make no mistake; Keir Starmer has been an enemy to progressive politics in the UK.

As you no doubt know, Keir Starmer was Jeremy Corbyn’s shadow Brexit secretary. And Starmer used his position to sabotage any chance of Britain getting a soft Brexit:

When Starmer resigns in disgrace we will, gradually, start to see revision regarding his role in Brexit. He locks in no deal.

As Shadow Brexit Secretary before 2019 he led a truly insane position, which could never work. That same political idiocy is now evident in Number 10.

— Aaron Bastani (@AaronBastani) September 14, 2025

As Bastani wrote for unherd:

At each turn Starmer’s position can be explained by one thing: career advancement. One can only suspect that remains the case. Indeed, it can even be argued that Starmer set Labour up to fail when it came to Brexit prior to 2019.

Theresa May’s Chief of Staff Gavin Barwell certainly thought so. He recalled how Starmer seemed utterly intent on scotching any kind of compromise. This was so obvious that Barwell tried an experiment, giving the shadow Brexit secretary a proposal copied from something Starmer himself had written. Starmer “objected to the language on customs” in one of the bilateral documents. “I pointed out that we had lifted it from his letter of April 22 — he was objecting to his own policy,” Barwell writes in his memoir.

Starmer would later champion the second referendum position which caused Labour to haemorrhage support in the 2019 election (although more people voted Labour that year than in 2024 when Starmer won his majority).

Starmer famously became Labour leader on the back of his 10 Pledges. There was a lot of good stuff in those pledges, and if he’d enacted them, he would have dramatically improved this country (he might have avoided tanking his polling too). Instead, Starmer quietly abandoned the pledges one by one between 2020 and the 2024 election.

Forgive us if we don't trust Keir Starmer.

Do you? pic.twitter.com/0XuPquukcz

— The Green Party (@TheGreenParty) April 17, 2026

In addition to all this, Starmer’s government has raised eyebrows for the many sex offenders in its orbit:

Keir today, gone tomorrow

It wouldn’t be inaccurate to say Starmer was an improvement on the Tories. The problem was that the scale of improvement was a million miles away from what the moment required.

The guy was bailing out water with a thimble, and now his ship has sunk. Bon voyage, Keir Rodney Starmer!

Featured image via the Canary