Keir Starmer prepares to defend leadership as ‘feral’ Labour MPs gather
A senior UK government minister has been forced to deny rumours he is among cabinet members plotting to challenge the PM after the budget later this month.
Keir Starmer has privately vowed to fight any challenge to his leadership after this month’s budget or next year’s local elections.
Allies of the British Prime Minister have told The Times that he will not resign in the event of any attempt to remove him and would contest any leadership race prompted by his MPs.
Wes Streeting, the Health Secretary, was forced to issue a denial and publicly distance himself from rumours – believed by some in Sir Keir’s circle – that he was among the plotters.
Sir Keir is aware of the growing threat to his position and is “already fighting the leadership election” by reaching out to Labour backbenchers, allies said. He has told ministers any attempted coup would destabilise Britain’s standing on the financial markets and its relationship with foreign governments.
One supporter said: “Keir knows he is already fighting a leadership contest. When it comes, he won’t resign. He will fight it. He thinks it’s fantasy politics.”
Downing Street figures suspect that Mr Streeting could demand the Prime Minister’s resignation in the days after the budget is delivered on November 26.
On Tuesday night (local time) a spokesman for the Health Secretary issued a public denial that he was plotting against Sir Keir.
Insisting it was “categorically untrue” to suggest Mr Streeting intended to challenge Sir Keir, the spokesman said: “Wes’s focus has entirely been on cutting waiting lists for the first time in 15 years, recruiting 2500 more GPs and rebuilding the NHS that saved his life.”
Starmer loyalists believe that Mr Streeting, Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood, Energy Secretary Ed Miliband and deputy Labour leader Lucy Powell could all run in any leadership contest, though none have given any indication they intend to do so. Loyalists also suspect that the soft-left Tribune Group, relaunched last week, is a front for the leadership ambitions of Louise Haigh, the former transport secretary.
MPs have said Angela Rayner, the former deputy prime minister, was likely to emerge as the “kingmaker” in any race.
A cabinet minister who believes the Prime Minister should remain in place until the next election conceded he was now at the mercy of “feral” Labour MPs from the 2024 intake.
They raised the prospect of an MP with little chance of winning acting as a “stalking horse” and securing the nominations needed for a leadership contest, an open letter demanding Sir Keir’s resignation or a confidence vote organised by the parliamentary Labour Party – a test last faced by Jeremy Corbyn in 2016 in the wake of the Brexit referendum.
Mr Corbyn lost the vote by 172 votes to 40, but refused to resign and won a subsequent leadership election by a landslide, underlining the structural difficulties faced by those hopeful of ousting Sir Keir.
Nominations are needed from 80 MPs to initiate a Labour leadership election. Candidates are then required to secure the backing of trade unions or constituency parties before a full vote of grassroots members. Senior government figures said they had been told that Mr Streeting had 50 frontbenchers willing to step down if the budget was received badly and Sir Keir failed to resign.
Another ally of Sir Keir said that agitators needed “to think long and hard about how the voters would react to us spending months talking to ourselves when the country is crying out for change”. They added that the “market reaction, especially in the aftermath of a budget”, was unlikely to be positive.
The Times
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