British Prime Minister Keir Starmer faces a growing revolt after Labour election losses. Photo / Getty Images
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer faces a stalking-horse leadership challenge after a Labour MP warned the Cabinet she would move against him by Monday (local time) unless ministers acted first.
Catherine West, a former Labour junior minister, sent Downing Street into a panic after stating that unless any of the serious leadership candidates intervened by Monday, she would act.
It came as the fallout from Labour’s disastrous local election results gained pace, with 39 Labour MPs publicly calling on Starmer to go by today (NZT) after the party lost 1492 seats.
One serving government minister told the Telegraph that West was likely to reach the 81 MPs required to trigger a leadership contest.
The minister said Labour MPs and voters were “angry” and wanted Starmer to “grow a backbone”.
A government source said: “You can sense the Cabinet is coming to the end of its tether,” adding that support for the Prime Minister was now much less pronounced than it was earlier in the year.
Starmer was expected to set out his plan to revive his faltering premiership in a speech. Today he gave advisory roles to Labour grandees Gordon Brown and Baroness Harman.
The Prime Minister admitted that “the hope wasn’t there enough in the first two years of this government” and suggested he would set out the way forward as well as “the convictions and values that drive me” in the coming days.
West’s stalking-horse challenge – where a low-profile politician runs in order to weaken the prime minister and pave the way for a more serious candidate – appeared to take the main leadership rivals’ camps by surprise as they scrambled to distance themselves from it.
Allies of Andy Burnham are trying to convince West to abandon her plan, as the Mayor of Greater Manchester is currently not eligible to run for the leadership because he is not an MP.
However, West vowed to press on, telling the New Statesman: “I really like Andy, but he’s not here on the spot, so he can’t really do it”.
She said she was both a “lone wolf” and a “stalking horse” but that: “You know what sometimes happens to stalking horses? They become the candidate.”
One Labour MP from the moderate wing of the party described West as a “hero”, saying: “Hopefully this will kick the Cabinet into doing the right thing – to go to the PM and tell him the time is up”.
They added that they would be “shocked” if West failed to get the numbers, adding that they would initially come from the left of the party but, following Starmer’s upcoming reset speech, moderates would start to add their names, too.
“The worst possible outcome is that we keep a PM who is hated by voters and staggers on, month after month,” they said.
West revealed that Downing Street begged her to delay her move until mid-week so as not to overshadow the Prime Minister’s reset speech.
She told the New Statesman that she informed the Chief Whip and party chairman of her intentions, but she refused their entreaties to hold off.
West’s move won praise from members of Labour’s left-wing caucus, with one member of the Socialist Campaign Group saying she was an “admirable person” who could secure enough support for a leadership contest.
“This could catch fire and she could force a contest. If she gets to a credible number, then that will force others to go for it,” they said.
Graham Stringer, the veteran Labour backbencher, said: “Keir Starmer has lost the confidence of the British people. He has lost the confidence, in private, of Labour MPs. It is impossible for him to stay.”
He added that even if West did not secure the 81 backers required to trigger a leadership contest, her move would encourage Starmer “to realise he has got to announce the timetable”.
The Telegraph has been told that Louise Haigh, who called for Starmer to resign, and members of the soft-left Tribune group, are trying to work out how to stop West from running.
But responding to the requests of supporters of Burnham for her to hold off, West said she feared there was no certainty that the mayor would win a seat in Parliament and the “current situation has to be addressed with urgency”.
Leadership rivals Wes Streeting and Angela Rayner have a clear advantage over Burnham as they are sitting MPs, and only need to gather the backing of the 81 Labour MPs to launch their own run.
One MP suggested today that allies of Streeting would lend votes to West in order to trigger a race.
“All the MPs who are pro-Burnham are going absolutely nuts because it locks out Burnham,” one Labour MP told the Telegraph. “They are angry because this only benefits Wes [Streeting]. He’s the most ready, and if he goes now, it could be a coronation.”
Other leading figures on the soft-left played down the significance of West’s move, with one saying: “I don’t think it will go anywhere to be honest”.
The person added that she would get “nowhere near” the number of backers required to trigger a formal leadership election as she “has unrealistic expectations of how collegiate people will be”.
Another added that West’s move was “very irresponsible”, adding: “I think we need calm heads at the moment, we need to take some time to reflect, allow Keir the chance to turn it round”.
West, the MP for Hornsey and Friern Barnet, said she had put the Cabinet “on notice” until Monday, by which time she would ask MPs to back her in triggering a contest.
She told BBC Radio 4: “My preferred option is for the Cabinet to do a reshuffle within itself, where there’s plenty of talent. And for Keir to be given a different role, which he might enjoy, perhaps an international role.
“Then for others to come to the fore who can communicate the message, who are very able, so we can have minimum fuss.”
She told Times Radio that the trigger for her actions was seeing the Labour council leader of Haringey, which is in her constituency, lose her seat, alongside the resignation of the former first minister of Wales and the party’s losses in Camden.
“The current approach lacks the urgency we need for the upcoming general election,” she said. “I didn’t plan to do this but I think it’s the only way to get people out of their torpor.”
Asked whether she had had conversations with any potential leadership candidates, she said she would not comment on private conversations.
Since going public with her plan earlier this morning, she told the New Statesman that she had been “inundated” with support from colleagues.
She said she hoped her move would force the Cabinet to “grip this crisis” and “put forward a leader” by agreeing among themselves who it should be.
“And then basically that would mean we wouldn’t have to have a leadership election because it would just be a consensus within the Cabinet,” she said.
In a further blow for Starmer, more than 100 Labour councillors and candidates have signed an open letter demanding that he set out a timetable for his “orderly” resignation.
The letter to the Prime Minister urged him to leave Downing Street in order to take “full responsibility” for Labour’s local election defeat.
Letter to Starmer in full:
Dear Keir,
It is with sadness and deep regret that we, the undersigned former and present Labour councillors, Members of the Senedd, Members of the Scottish Parliament and May 7 candidates from across the UK, write to encourage you to take full responsibility for our party’s electoral defeats this week, announce a timetable for your departure, and allow an orderly transition to new leadership for the country.
This week, our party suffered multiple historic defeats: in Wales, Scotland, and all across England.
Your government has delivered transformative things for the country, things we are all proud of: the Employment Rights Act; the Renters Rights Act; investment in public services; dignity and direction on the world stage at a time of tension and instability.
But this week, the public voted with their feet and it is now clear that we will need new leadership to take us into the next election.
We fear that inaction serves only Reform UK and risks handing the keys to Number 10 to Nigel Farage. The British public would not forgive us for this.
For the sake of the communities that our party was founded to represent, we urge you to announce a date for your departure and to guarantee an orderly process to elect your successor.
Starmer will attempt a fightback, including his speech where he will set out a “clear, optimistic vision” for the country.
A focus of the speech will be on “opportunity and young people” and addressing how to ensure that young people have the best chance to get on in life.
Bridget Phillipson, the Education Secretary, will unveil a list of places – including Hastings, Scarborough and the North East – which have been selected for the Government’s new “education missions”.
Writing for the Telegraph, she said that Labour’s local election results were “a verdict” on the “pace of the change we promised, on the cost of living, on the rebuilding of the public realm and on the hope and optimism that voters feel has been missing”.
She said: “Too often they have not had a clear sense of what we stand for; who we are for, and what we are against. And too often our response has been technocratic, rather than driven by our values.
“It’s a howl of anguish from voters who have failed as yet to see the fruits of the change we promised after decades of decline.”
Government sources played down the significance of West’s move, accusing her of trying to “play chicken”, adding: “I don’t think anything will come of it”.
Another Government source said West was disgruntled because Starmer sacked her from the front bench last year. “He sacked her and now she wants to sack him,” they said.
Starmer said that while the results had been “really tough”, he would not stand down, adding that he would set out a message of “hope for the future”.
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