Starmer Fights For Political Life As Rivals Plan Leadership Bids

Next Thursday’s elections have not even happened yet, but Labour’s post-mortem is already well underway.

The party is forecast to lose nearly 2,000 councillors across England as voters deliver a damning verdict on Keir Starmer’s time in No.10 so far.

Labour will also suffer humiliating defeat in Scotland and Wales to further compound the prime minister’s misery.

It is therefore unsurprising that the thoughts of Labour MPs are already consumed by what will come next.

The leadership ambitions of Angela Rayner, Wes Streeting and Andy Burnham are undeniable as they ready themselves to grab the ball should it, as Boris Johnson once memorably said, come loose at the back of the scrum.

But the PM’s remaining supporters insist that with the economic fallout of the war in Iran about to engulf the UK, now is not the time to be changing leader.

Rugby MP John Slinger, the loyalist’s loyalist, told HuffPost UK: “We should stick with Keir.

“Not as a way to block Angela Rayner or others, or as the least bad option amid a range of far worse alternatives, but because he is the right leader for this time.”

Starmer himself pleaded his case at last Monday’s meeting of the Parliamentary Labour Party (PLP).

The target of his speech was officially the Tories, who that evening were trying to persuade the Commons to launch a Privileges Committee probe into whether the PM had misled parliament over the Peter Mandelson scandal.

“We are the first government for generations to take key parts of the public realm back into public ownership,” Starmer told the assembled MPs and peers.

“They don’t like that, but we’re doing it. The first government for generations to give rights and power to workers, to renters, to the less fortunate.

“The first government for generations prepared to stand against wealth interests, to raise money and put that into public services and fighting child poverty. They don’t like it, they said they’d reverse it.

“We have a mandate to do all of those things. And they are not going to stop us.”

His peroration, however, was a direct plea for his own MPs not to throw him overboard.

“When we stick together and fight together we are so much stronger,” the PM said.

A No.10 insider insisted Starmer “doesn’t really engage with all the leadership stuff – he’s got enough on his plate without having to worry about that”.

“The fundamentals of the situations haven’t changed,” the source said. “We’ve just got to stay away from all the chatter that’s going around.

“The war in Iran has brought into sharp focus what we need to do as a country – boost energy security, economic security and national security.

“The PM has a plan for how we do that and that’s what he’s focussing on.”

Many Labour MPs believe a change of leader, and soon, is vital if the party is to stand any chance at all of being re-elected.

One backbencher said: “A year or so of drift and decline? No thanks.”

The received wisdom at Westminster in recent months has been that Rayner’s leadership hopes are stymied until His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs completes its probe into her tax affairs.

However, supporters of hers – including her close ally, former Jeremy Corbyn aide Sam Tarry – believe she needs to strike quickly or her chance of seizing the crown will be gone.

One minister said her problems with HMRC could even help her in any leadership contest.

“Some people think we should go for it whilst she is still under investigation,” he said. “She could portray herself as an anti-establishment, working class women who was simply given bad tax advice.

“What you have to remember is it would be the Labour membership choosing the leader, not the country. The HMRC stuff may actually strengthen her case.”

According to the Daily Telegraph, Streeting already has the 80 MPs needed to launch a challenge to Starmer, and could move as soon as Friday if the election results are as bad for Labour as feared.

Sensing that such chatter could backfire on him, Streeting issued a non-denial denial in the Labour MPs’ WhatsApp group, saying: “There is currently an industry in fishing expeditions by lobby journalists at the moment. Don’t feed it. It undermines all of us fighting elections locally.”

But one senior Labour figure told HuffPost UK: “I simply don’t believe for a second that Wes has 80 MPs.”

Another added: “Where Wes has an advantage is that the cabinet won’t want to hand the party over to Sam Tarry. Where he has a disadvantage is that his colleagues can’t stand him.”

Support for Burnham – one of the few remaining popular Labour politicians – is undoubtedly growing among MPs, with one source claiming Rayner is “rapidly losing her base to Andy”

Speaking at a Bloomberg event last week, he again refused to rule out a comeback, and notably refused to back Starmer continuing as PM after May 7.

The Manchester mayor also suggested that the defence budget be removed from the Treasury’s fiscal rules, allowing the government to borrow more to fund an increase in spending.

The Guardian reported that he could do so “within weeks”, prompting an angry backlash from some of those whose support he will be seeking should be manage to become an MP again.

Banbury MP Sean Woodcock said on X: “It’s a massive kick in the teeth to see people putting this sort of stuff out while hardworking candidates and activists are busy ahead of next week. Some would say it lacks class.”

A minister added: “We are days away from major elections and you’d think Andy would be trying to help his colleagues not hinder them with more ‘look at me’ nonsense.”

One senior Labour figure said: “Andy had a reputation as a government minister for being indecisive and under briefed. So the hope is that his time in Manchester has improved him.

“The first problem would come when he sits down and the fiscal reality is set out for him by officials. Suddenly all the dismissive talk about the bond markets becomes real and you have to decide whether you are going to roll the dice on interest rates and inflation.”

Another insider added: “I think Andy’s got a better chance of being a plausible and attractive offer than any other candidate.

“But I also think that any PM is going to quickly find themselves being the embodiment of the British state and British decline – look at how every PM back to May has seen their ratings plunge – and that is structural rather than just about the strengths and weaknesses of any one person.”

Meanwhile, speculation that defence secretary John Healey could become a unity candidate refuses to go away.

“He’s from the soft left, is a safe pair of hands and not offensive to anyone,” one senior MP said.

The PM is being urged by some of his top team, including his political director Amy Richards, to hold a reshuffle immediately after Thursday’s elections.

Others, however, doubt whether he is politically strong enough to risk angering even more of his already-unhappy MPs.

Ahead of what could be a defining week for Starmer and the Labour Party, the one thing we know for sure is that no one really knows what is going to happen – not even the main protagonists.

One Starmer ally told HuffPost UK: “Angie, Wes and Andy are setting in train a process none of them can control and if they think things are bad now, let’s see what happens when they open the gates to chaos just as the effects of Trump’s war bite.”

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