Keir Starmer’s much-criticised trip to China could not have come at a better time for the beleaguered prime minister.
Following another gruelling week in which one potential leadership challenger was seen off – for now at least – when Andy Burnham’s attempt to return to parliament failed, and another, former deputy PM Angela Rayner, declared “I’m not dead yet”, you could perhaps forgive the PM for wanting a few days away from the never-ending Westminster drama surrounding his future.
What is driving this new leadership speculation is Starmer’s dire unpopularity with voters: in a recent YouGov poll, 75% said they viewed him unfavourably; only Liz Truss has ever had worse ratings.
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For Labour MPs, it’s the prospect of losing the next general election to Reform that has them “bordering on cold panic”, and “turbo-charges questions about Keir Starmer’s future as prime minister and so raises the profile of those seen by some as possible successors”, said BBC political editor Chris Mason.
The threat from Burnham may have been thwarted but he still poses a fundamental problem for Starmer: that he is everything the PM is not.
It’s just one of those “unfortunate coalitions”, said Zoe Williams in The Guardian: “everyone who wishes a Labour government stood for something, and had a discernible sense of purpose, likes Burnham; everyone who has fond memories of the Blair years likes him, but everyone who hated the Blair years also likes him”. Plus, “everyone who doesn’t really concentrate on politics likes him,” while those who do are “exhausted by watching the discourse” as “the entire mainstream seeks to chase off Reform politics by sounding exactly like it”.
The “real winner” from the NEC’s decision to block Burnham’s return was undoubtedly Wes Streeting, said Ben Walker in The New Statesman. The health secretary, who has made little secret of his wish to one day take over the top job, is the “current front-runner” in the parliamentary Labour Party although among the rank-and-file membership, who he would need to win over, he is “more divisive”.
“Streeting would probably defeat Starmer in a head-to-head contest, but if he has to face off against another, more soft-left, candidate, it might be trickier.”
With Burnham out of the race, who could that other candidate be? Angela Rayner, who resigned as deputy PM in September after failing to get proper tax advice on a property sale, this week made clear to supporters her intention to return to the government. Allies told The Times she would have 80 MPs ready to back a leadership bid and would be “well placed to challenge” the PM “after what are expected to be a difficult set of elections in May”.
This still may be “too soon” for Rayner to stand against Streeting, said Kitty Donaldson in The i Paper. Instead, some Labour MPs have “talked up the prospect” of former leader and Energy Secretary Ed Miliband becoming the “choice of the soft left”.
“I know he has said he doesn’t want it, and I think he wants to be chancellor, but who knows, maybe we can bring him round?” one left-learning MP told the paper.
What next?
The “pathway to a coup is still unclear” and Starmer’s team “cling to the hope that something may turn up” before the crucial 7 May local and devolved elections, or that his rivals will “lose their nerve”, said the Financial Times.
But barring a better-than-expected result, which few if any see as likely based on current voter sentiment, the pressure on the PM from his own MPs to make way following an electoral bloodbath could become overwhelming.
Even if Labour did decide to ditch Starmer, “they haven’t a mandate for such a departure”, said Danny Finkelstein in The Times. There is “no point” changing leader “unless they also embark on a new course” so whoever replaces him as PM “should call an election and present a new programme for government”.
For now, all the mooted candidates have denied they are plotting a run for the leadership, and Starmer told Bloomberg on Monday that the public had given him a personal mandate to lead Britain for five years and vowed to complete a full term.
“But as anyone in Westminster would tell you”, said Politico’s London Playbook, “it gets harder every week to find many Labour MPs who truly believe he will.”
