Keir Starmer: “The question my party is asking now is whether I am best placed to lead us into the next general election.”

In six and a half years, I took our party from a historic defeat in 2019, changed it so it was fit to face the country and won a landslide general election victory in 2024.

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 also continue, as I have done for a long time now with others, to work on combating violence against women and girls; that is an issue that matters to me hugely.

I think once you’ve been prime minister, it’s important to answer the question: what are you going to do next? Having decided I’m going to concentrate on international affairs, I think it’s right to step down.