Keir Starmer warned ‘time running out’ to repair faltering leadership
Keir Starmer has been warned that time is running out to repair his faltering leadership, with Labour MPs beginning to ask whether he could be challenged as prime minister.After a disastrous week in which Angela Rayner resigned and Peter Mandelson was sacked as ambassador to Washington, a number of MPs said a challenge was likely if local and Welsh elections went badly next May.Some said the one thing now protecting Starmer was the lack of an agreed replacement.“Personally, I think the clock is ticking,” one MP said.“It sometimes happens to people who are incredibly well meaning, but you can pass that tipping point and can’t recover.
”It came as Lucy Powell, who was sacked from the cabinet in the reshuffle after Rayner’s departure and who is standing to replace her as deputy leader, called for a “change of culture” in a Downing Street she described as overly factional and error-prone,“We’ve got a bit of a groupthink happening at the top, that culture of not being receptive to interrogation, not being receptive to differing views,” Powell told the Guardian,The only MP to go public in saying Starmer should go is Clive Lewis, a regular critic of the government from the left of the party,The Norwich South MP told BBC’s The Week in Westminster programme that Starmer had “lost control within the first year”, adding: “We don’t have the luxury of carrying on this way with someone who I think increasingly, I’m sorry to say, just doesn’t seem up to the job,”Allies of Starmer are urging a sense of proportion.
“No one is oblivious to the scale of the challenge or the need to be better, least of all Keir,” one said,“We know it’s a difficult time and MPs are worried about their own majorities,We’re more aware than anyone that things are very febrile,”It comes ahead of another potentially tricky week for Starmer, which includes the state visit to the UK for Donald Trump, who is both hugely unpredictable and unpopular with Labour MPs,The US president and his wife, Melania, will arrive on Tuesday evening, and be greeted by James Roscoe, Mandelson’s interim replacement as UK ambassador to the US.
With morale described as very low in the parliamentary party, some of the anger has centred around Morgan McSweeney, Starmer’s chief of staff, who has been blamed for No 10’s initial defence of Mandelson – something one government source denied – and for being central to a narrow, clique-based ruling faction.One minister said: “The one person who is the constant through every bad decision since 24 July [last year] is Morgan.Maybe the PM keeps getting rid of the wrong people.”But other MPs, including some who are normally loyal, are increasingly questioning whether Starmer can lead the party out of its current slump in the polls.“The problem is Keir,” one normally loyal MP said.
“He doesn’t have any judgment, he doesn’t make an effort to speak to MPs, let alone ministers.Unless Keir has a personality transplant and majorly changes things, I don’t know how he is going to improve.For the first time I’ve begun to wonder if he is going to be the leader at the next election.”Another backbencher said: “So far this has been Keir on his own terms, with us doing everything that he wants, other than welfare reform, and it’s driven our poll ratings absolutely into the toilet.“He’s replaced everyone, at every level, and everything keeps going the same direction.
The only conclusion can be that the PM just has terrible judgment.”One MP from the usually loyal contingent of 2024 entrants said: “It’s not a happy parliamentary party at the moment.The only person less popular than Keir Starmer in my constituency is Rachel Reeves.”Several pointed to last week’s reshuffle as another source of discontent, both from the point of view of perceived factionalism, with allies of Starmer and McSweeney seen as being favoured, and because they did not understand the rationale for a mass carousel of ministers to different cabinet jobs.Sign up to First EditionOur morning email breaks down the key stories of the day, telling you what’s happening and why it mattersafter newsletter promotionJonathan Reynolds has told colleagues he is unhappy to have been moved from business secretary to the backroom role of chief whip, according to MPs.
And earlier this week Ed Balls said on his podcast that his wife, Yvette Cooper, had found her move from home secretary to foreign secretary “frustrating”.“He’s moved all the people who are loyal to him into ministerial or PPS roles, with the end result being that he’s now got no one really left in the backbenches fighting his corner, and put a load of pissed-off ex-ministers there instead,” one minister said“If we were 20 points ahead in the polls, people would probably suck it up.But if we bomb next May, I can’t really see Keir surviving that without at least a challenge.”For many MPs, the next key moment will be this month’s Labour conference in Liverpool, where they are hoping for signs of change.“I’ve never known the mood in the parliamentary Labour party to be this bad,” one said.
“The normally loyal are furious,”“We know that things like this knock you off course,It’s bad and we have to get back on track,” a Downing Street source said,The ally of Starmer said the prime minister was well aware of the task he faced: “He knows we need to do a huge amount of work to rebuild relations with the party, and to do a better job of conveying what he wants to do to the public,We think that conference will help with that.
”The Scotland secretary, Douglas Alexander, told BBC Breakfast on Friday morning that he understood why Labour MPs were “despondent”, saying that “nothing justifies” Mandelson’s appointment “in light of what has now emerged”.He added: “These are not the headlines any of us in government or in parliament would have chosen or wanted.But the fact is when the evidence emerged, action had to be taken and we are looking forward, therefore, to moving on.”The best public interest journalism relies on first-hand accounts from people in the know.If you have something to share on this subject, you can contact us confidentially using the following methods.
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Keir Starmer warned ‘time running out’ to repair faltering leadership
Keir Starmer has been warned that time is running out to repair his faltering leadership, with Labour MPs beginning to ask whether he could be challenged as prime minister.After a disastrous week in which Angela Rayner resigned and Peter Mandelson was sacked as ambassador to Washington, a number of MPs said a challenge was likely if local and Welsh elections went badly next May. Some said the one thing now protecting Starmer was the lack of an agreed replacement.“Personally, I think the clock is ticking,” one MP said. “It sometimes happens to people who are incredibly well meaning, but you can pass that tipping point and can’t recover
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Your editorial on the so-called war on drugs (Donald Trump is turning a failed metaphor into a more dangerous reality, 7 September) is correct: the extrajudicial killing of alleged drug traffickers will not solve the US fentanyl crisis.Anyone who has followed past attempts to militarise drug law enforcement will know that such efforts are bound to fail. For instance, despite billions in military and counternarcotics assistance by successive US administrations, Colombia now produces more cocaine than ever before, flooding a rapidly growing market.Similarly, hard-hitting military responses in one country have pushed the problem across borders. Ecuador and Brazil have experienced significant surges in drug trafficking and crime as a result of Colombia’s (unsuccessful) crackdowns
Downing Street says Starmer still has ‘confidence in his top team’ after Rayner and Mandelson departures – as it happened
Downing Street said Keir Starmer still had confidence in his “top team” follow questions over his chief of staff Morgan McSweeney, who was reported to have lobbied for Peter Mandelson’s initial appointment.Education secretary Bridget Phillipson, and the ousted cabinet minister Lucy Powell, are set to be the two candidates for Labour’s deputy leadership as other candidates struggled to get the minimum number of nominations. On Wednesday evening, Phillipson had the backing of 116 MPs and Powell had 77 nominations, three short of the required 80.The chairwoman of parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee has written to the foreign secretary demanding answers on the vetting process for Peter Mandelson’s appointment as ambassador to the US. Emily Thornberry wrote to Yvette Cooper, who took over as foreign secretary after the cabinet reshuffle, asking for clarification on what security concerns were raised during the process and how the Foreign Office responded to those concerns
Labour deputy contender Lucy Powell calls for culture change at No 10
Lucy Powell has called for a “change of culture” inside Keir Starmer’s Downing Street to make it more inclusive and better connected to MPs, promising that as Labour’s deputy leader she would when needed deliver difficult truths to the prime minister.Speaking to the Guardian after she secured 117 MP nominations in the battle to replace Angela Rayner, Powell said a sequence of what she called “unforced errors” by the government had left many Labour MPs and members frustrated.Powell now faces a vote of party members against Bridget Phillipson, the education secretary, who reached 175 endorsements and is viewed as No 10’s preferred choice to take on the role.Powell was Commons leader until she was sacked from the government in last week’s reshuffle, a decision she said was a complete shock, and for which she had as yet received no explanation.She said she believed it could be because she sometimes passed on MPs’ concerns to Downing Street, and that if elected she would hope to continue such a “shop steward” role, making the government less factional and closed-off
Starmer urged to do more to push back against ‘onslaught of racism’
Senior Labour MPs and the UK’s largest anti-fascist campaign group have called on Keir Starmer to mount a more heartfelt defence of diversity and anti-racism. They say they fear that Labour is not yet putting its “heart and soul” into the battle against Nigel Farage and the far right.Hope Not Hate’s chief executive has written a letter to Starmer in the lead up to a planned far-right demonstration in London on Saturday, demanding the prime minister speak up more against hate and racism.In the letter, Nick Lowles said: “Hate breeds when those in power are silent. I implore you and other ministers to speak out urgently in defence of our migrant communities and our multicultural society more generally
Share your question for the Labour party deputy leadership candidates
Education secretary Bridget Phillipson, and the ousted cabinet minister Lucy Powell, are set to be the two candidates for Labour’s deputy leadership as other candidates struggled to get the minimum number of nominations.On Wednesday evening, Phillipson had the backing of 116 MPs and Powell had 77 nominations, three short of the required 80.Bell Ribeiro-Addy and Paula Barker received support from fewer than 15 MPs, with Emily Thornberry announcing on Thursday she had withdrawn from the race. The communities minister Alison McGovern pulled out on Wednesday afternoon and endorsed Phillipson.The ballot for members to vote will open on Wednesday 8 October and they will have until Thursday 23 October to have their say
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