Labour MPs Demand Keir Starmer Sack Morgan McSweeney

Labour MPs have publicly called on Keir Starmer to sack his chief of staff Morgan McSweeney in order to save his premiership.

In a major challenge to the prime minister’s authority, they said the Irishman should lose his job for advising Starmer to appoint Peter Mandelson as the UK’s ambassador to Washington.

That was despite it being known that Mandelson had continued his friendship with the financier Jeffrey Epstein even after his conviction for soliciting a child for prostitution.

At prime minister’s questions on Wednesday, Starmer said McSweeney was “an essential part of my team”.

He said: “He helped me change the Labour Party and win the election. Of course I have confidence in him.”

One Labour MP told HuffPost UK: “It seemed like being present at the political death of the prime minister, whether or not Morgan McSweeney goes first.”

Two of Starmer’s backbenchers broke ranks on Thursday to publicly call for Starmer to sack McSweeney.

Karl Turner, a supporter of the PM, told Times Radio: “If the prime minister decides that he has to be surrounded by advisors who give him shoddy advice, I think that will end in the prime minister having to be making a decision about his future at some point soon.

“If McSweeney continues in No 10 Downing Street, I think the PM is up against it in a way that he doesn’t need to be.”

Alloa and Grangemouth MP Brian Leishman told Radio Scotland: “When we look at the historic mis-steps and misjudgments we’ve made, Morgan McSweeney is at the heart of that and it’s time he was removed from power.”

But housing secretary Steve Reed, a close ally of McSweeney insisted that he is going nowhere.

Asked on Sky News if he was safe in his job, he replied: “Of course he is.”