Politics Home Article | Rebel MP To Canvass MPs For September Labour Leader Election

Catherine West will canvass MPs for support this afternoon (Alamy)

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She insists to PoliticsHome that she does not have a particular successor in mind.

West said on Saturday that she would challenge the Prime Minister if a cabinet minister did not put themselves forward.

Speaking to BBC Radio 4, she said: “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.”

West was understood to be waiting to make her final decision until after Starmer had finished giving his speech on Monday morning setting out a reset after Labour faced a devastating set of local elections. 

Speaking to PoliticsHome about the decision to not launch her leadership bid and instead canvass for a timetable for Starmer’s resignation, West said: “A lot of people might not have envisaged yours truly as walking into No 10 and I’m therefore happy to do something more vague.”

Asked if she had a particular leader in mind to take over from Starmer, West said: “No I genuinely want to keep it as open as possible. That’s why I have said by September [referring to her email], but that’s really not my job. My job was to get the ball rolling and test the temperature of the PLP. And so that is where we have got to. “

In an email to MPs seen by PoliticsHome sent after the speech concluded, West said: “I am hereby giving notice to No 10 that I am collecting names of Labour MPs to call on the Prime Minister to set a timetable for the election of a new leader in September.”

West said that while she welcomed “the renewed energy and ideas” in Starmer’s speech, she felt that it was “too little too late”.

“The results last Thursday show that the PM has failed to inspire hope. What is best for the party and country now is for an orderly transition.”

On the letter, West said there was no deadline for MPs to respond as such and while she had originally wanted to say by 10am on Tuesday, she felt that for some MPs who might be “a bit nervous that might be a bit pushy”.

West said that it would also allow MPs time to speak to their Constituency Labour Party.

She added that while she did not think anybody “dislikes” Starmer, “we are just in a different era now [from 2024] with Reform being like this.

“We need more of a street fighter, and I think people have stopped listening to us, and I think that is dangerous in politics.”