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Leadership elections: Labour Party

2026 leadership election

On 22 June 2026 Sir Keir Starmer announced his intention to resign Leader of the Labour Party and Prime Minister. This followed a period of speculation about his leadership.

In his resignation speech Sir Keir said the nomination period for a new party leader would be 9 July to 16 July. If there was more than one candidate an election would be held and completed by 1 September. The Labour Party’s National Executive Committee (NEC) is responsible for drawing up the detailed timetable of any leadership election.

Andy Burnham confirmed on the morning of the resignation that he would enter the leadership race. Candidates needed 81 MPs to nominate them in order to stand for the party leadership.

The NEC released a full timetable on 25 June 2026. It said if there was only one candidate a special conference would confirm the result on 17 July, the day after nominations closed. As Andy Burnham was the only validly nominated candidate he was confirmed as the new leader on 17 July.

Labour Party Rule Book

Rules for Labour Party leadership elections are set out in the  Labour Party Rule Book (PDF), with Labour’s ruling National Executive Committee (NEC) responsible for setting exact timings and election procedures. The rules may be varied by the consent of the NEC.

Vacancies

When a vacancy arises, Labour Party leadership or deputy leadership elections consist of two stages:

Stage 1: Nominations

Candidates seeking to enter the ballot must be an MP.

Candidates must be nominated by 20% of fellow Labour MPs.

The current rules were last changed in 2021, when the Labour Party Conference agreed to raise the threshold for nominations from 10% to 20% of MPs.

To progress candidates must also be nominated by:

• 5% of constituency Labour Parties (CLPs), or
• at least three affiliates of the Labour Party (at least two must be trade unions) where the combined membership of nominating affiliates should be at least 5% of affiliated membership

Affiliates are groups or organisations which have interests consistent with those of the Labour Party; they include trade unions and co-operative and socialist societies.

The nomination stage for CLPs and affiliates was added after a review of Labour leadership elections in 2018. In the 2020 leadership election, the candidates had to secure the required level of support from fellow MPs before moving on to the next round of securing the required nominations from CLPs and affiliates.

Stage 2: Ballot

Eligible members of the party and affiliates vote for the leader using a preferential voting system. Each voter has one vote but may rank the candidates in order of preference by marking their ballot 1, 2, 3 and so on. The winner is the first candidate to secure over 50% of the vote, using rounds of transfers of preferences if required. If a candidate wins over 50% of first preference votes, no transfers are required.

The rules for stage one are set out in chapter 4 of the Labour Party Rule Book (PDF). The precise rules on eligibility to vote in stage two of a leadership election are set out by the NEC.

Leadership challenges

Labour MPs cannot formally hold a vote of confidence in the party leader. However, MPs may initiate a leadership challenge each year prior to the annual session of party conference.

An MP wishing to challenge an incumbent leader must be supported by 20% of Labour MPs. If enough support is gathered to initiate a stage two membership ballot, the incumbent leader is automatically on the ballot paper, and they do not need to seek nominations from MPs.

Elections for the deputy leader of the party follow the same format.