Burnham to say he wants to unlock ‘positivity’ in first statement to MPs since becoming PM – UK politics live

Keir Starmer is going to resign as an MP, his local paper, the Camden New Journal, is reporting.

When he resigned as PM, Starmer said he planned to stay as a backbench MP until the next election. But he has changed his mind, the paper reports. It says:

double quotation mark After weeks of speculation about his future plans, [Starmer] chose his local newspaper to explain why he felt it was the “right time” to leave the House of Commons and concentrate on new work on international affairs.

He told the New Journal that, after leaving Downing Street at the end of July, he had reflected on what lay ahead and that he was ready to “pass the baton to a successor”, adding: “It has been a huge honour and privilege to represent the best constituency in the country and to have taken over from Frank Dobson, who was such a great constituency MP and a member of the last Labour government. I will now focus on other things and that will be international affairs including defence, security, trade and technology in a fast-changing world.

“I will also continue, as I have done for a long time now with others, work on combating violence against women and girls; that is an issue that matters to me hugely. It’s work I started before I became an MP and it’s work I’m keen to continue after I’m an MP. So international affairs on the one hand, and continuing my work on violence against women and girls on the other.”

This means there will be a byelection in Holborn and St Pancras in north London, where Starmer had a majority of 11,572 at the last election. At one point there were fears this could lead to Labour losing the seat to the Green party, but in recent weeks Labour’s national poll ratings have been rising and support for the Greens is on the wane.