The mood in the Labour Party was “febrile” ahead of this week’s elections, as the party braced for a “historic drubbing”, said Geraldine Scott in The Times. Before a single ballot had been counted, Keir Starmer’s rivals were brazenly jockeying for position to replace the embattled PM.
Allies of Wes Streeting, the Health Secretary, claimed that he had secured the support of more than 81 MPs – the minimum required to trigger a leadership contest – and was ready to “go over the top”. Former deputy prime minister Angela Rayner was said to be watching closely and weighing up whether to run for the leadership herself or play kingmaker for somebody else.
And the Greater Manchester Mayor, Andy Burnham, made it known that he had a credible plan to return to Westminster “within weeks”, said Jessica Elgot in The Guardian. The oft-dubbed “King of the North” has reportedly identified several seats in which MPs are prepared to step down so that he can run on a “sweeping” agenda of reform. As the plotting intensified, Starmer’s team insisted the PM wouldn’t be going down without a fight. “If they want him out, they’ll have to drag him out,” said one ally.
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‘Roster of amateurs’
Then drag him out they must, said Sonia Sodha in The Times. “Going into the next election with Starmer at the helm would be a disaster for Labour.” The PM’s personal ratings are “historically dire”. He was meant to be competent, but he has made “unforced error after unforced error”, and U-turn after U-turn. He promised to clean up politics, but then “accepted juicy freebies” and sent Peter Mandelson to Washington. The party needs a leader with vision and charisma; he comes across as “arrogant, inauthentic and angry”.
Starmer is “electoral kryptonite”, agreed Hugo Gye in The i Paper. But the “roster of amateurs” vying to replace him are little better. Rayner is still under active investigation by HMRC over her tax affairs. Streeting is “loathed” by the party’s soft-left majority. Burnham, who polls highest among the public, has to win a by-election first – and with the party as unpopular as it is, that’s not guaranteed, even in a once-safe Labour seat. To indulge in a leadership contest right now without a viable candidate would look petty, chaotic and self-obsessed. “To put it in terms that send shivers down Labour MPs’ spines: it would make them look like the Tories.”
No obvious replacement
The timing makes no sense, agreed Ian Dunt in the same paper. A new leader would “sit down at their desk” just as the Iran crisis is hammering the country with higher prices and interest rates. “Who in God’s name would want to take over right now?”
However badly Labour does, Starmer is likely to stay on for now, said John Rentoul in The Independent. There’s no obvious replacement, and the “kingmakers” in the cabinet are not yet convinced that push has come to shove. So I think Labour MPs “will huff and they will puff, but they will hold back from blowing the house down”.