The party general secretary is a highly influential role and Burnham will want a close ally in the post. Photograph: Hannah McKay/ReutersView image in fullscreenThe party general secretary is a highly influential role and Burnham will want a close ally in the post. Photograph: Hannah McKay/ReutersKeir Starmer ally Hollie Ridley to step down as Labour general secretaryExclusive: As well as citing personal reasons, Ridley says she is making way for a successor ‘to work alongside new leader’
Hollie Ridley, Labour’s general secretary, is to step down this autumn after two years in the job, she has announced to party staff.
Ridley, an ally of Keir Starmer who ran Labour’s field operations in the 2024 general win election, said in an internal email she would stand down after the party’s annual conference in September.
Saying this was in part for personal reasons, Ridley said it was also the right thing to allow Labour’s ruling national executive committee to pick a new general secretary “to work alongside a new leader once they are elected”.
Starmer announced in June that he was stepping down as prime minister, with Andy Burnham expected to replace him later this month.
The party general secretary is a highly influential role, and like Starmer, who oversaw Ridley’s appointment to the job shortly after becoming prime minister, Burnham will want a close ally in the post.
Ridley began working with Labour in 2011 when she was 22. She has said she first became involved with the party to fight the rise of the British National party in Dagenham, the town in east London where she grew up. She has held a series of party roles and is seen internally as a trailblazer for senior women in the party.
In a statement, Starmer called Ridley “one of the most formidable campaigners the Labour party has ever produced”, adding: “She built and led the ground campaign that delivered our general election victory and allowed us to start changing Britain, and as general secretary she has served our party with distinction.”
He added: “I want to thank her for everything she has done for our party, our country, and for me as leader. I am proud to have worked alongside her, and wish her the very best for what comes next.”
After making the decision to depart, Ridley contacted Burnham’s team and other senior figures in the party to let them know in advance, stressing she would continue to support a new prime minister.
Read moreRidley, who is close to Starmer’s former chief of staff Morgan McSweeney, spearheaded the party’s against-the-odds win in the 2019 Peterborough byelection.
In her email to staff, she said: “I grew up in Dagenham, the daughter of a family support worker and a lorry driver. Teachers always told me that politics wasn’t for me, that I should lower my sights and have more realistic expectations.
“I refused to believe that space shouldn’t be made for working-class girls determined to change their communities for the better. The Labour party shared my view, appointing me to the role of trainee organiser.
“Since then, I have been a campaign organiser, regional organiser, training manager, head of key seats, regional director, executive director of nations and regions, general election field director, CAC (conference arrangements committee) secretary and now, the general secretary.”
When Ridley took the job in September 2024, replacing the long-serving David Evans, she was appointed unopposed.
