You could be forgiven for thinking Sir Keir Starmer is days away from committing hara-kiri.
Messages from Labour MPs describe the Prime Minister as “toast,” “done for,” and “not long for this world”. But none can agree when or how this saga ends.
Hence the wargaming. Some MPs suggest a high-level delegation or Cabinet resignation this week to force the issue, blithely disregarding the fact it would definitely cost Labour the by-election in Gorton and Denton on 26 February. Others suggest a groundswell of Labour MPs could persuade the “women in grey suits” or party elders to go in on their behalf. Or a bunch of ministerial bag-carriers could resign en masse, as they did to force Sir Tony Blair down. Out of the 400-odd MPs, if they really wanted to, 80 MPs could fairly easily be found to force a leadership election.
But Labour MPs are hanging back. Some because their candidate isn’t ready, others because they are flapping around like chickens waiting to see if the fox is really there. Both former deputy prime minister Angela Rayner and Health Secretary Wes Streeting have inquires hanging over them. Rayner is being investigated by HMRC after she failed to pay the correct stamp duty on a flat she bought in Hove. Streeting is likely to feature in the data dump of Peter Mandelson’s communications from his time as ambassador in Washington – details of which are set to be published following a vote in Parliament.
According to a Cabinet minister who spoke to The i Paper today, the move against Starmer won’t come from the top table.
“Keir continues to have significant support in Cabinet even though there are people who would want his job. But there isn’t an obvious successor, we would look as mad as the Tories. I don’t anticipate anyone in the Cabinet making a move against him. People need to take a breath and remember how monumentally stupid it would be to throw away everything we have worked for after 18 months,” the senior minister said.
If the Labour Party wants a fight between left and right – and there are lots of indications it does – then the candidates move to Energy Secretary Ed Miliband on the left and Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood on the right. And then you encounter the next problem: the country won’t stand for Miliband, whom they rejected in 2015, and The Labour Party won’t countenance Mahmood, the scourge of asylum seekers.
Today, Tim Allan, Starmer’s director of communications, followed Morgan McSweeney, the chief of staff, out of the famous black front door in a clear-out designed to show a reset of the Prime Minister’s top team.
And so, amid all the chicken feathers flying, Starmer survives, wounded, but still in post, with his allies – such as they are – organising via WhatsApp to bolster him ahead of the Parliamentary Labour Party (PLP) meeting tonight.
Setting out their talking points for the meeting in the message seen by The i Paper, the allies suggest colleagues make this point: “Our constituents and members understand the difference between Keir Starmer, who accepts his mistakes and apologises, and the previous Tory PMs who set out to undermine all trust with voters” and they also urge “support for the Labour leadership”.
Those same allies believe Starmer is a decent man and allowing McSweeney and Tim Allan to take the fall instead may draw a line under the whole sordid affair. Others are less certain.
“I’m conflicted. I feel like it’s end of days for Keir. I don’t want UK Plc to lose another prime minister in such short succession, but the left is going to keep chucking their knives in. I went to Chequers on Thursday night and he was brilliant with us, but unless he can be like that with the public and show his heart is in it, I don’t see how he goes on. I woke up this morning, saw the headlines and the TV, and just wanted to stick my head in a vice. Also, you need to wonder what else is going to come out of these emails. I don’t think it is going to be pretty for many of them,” one Labour MP told The i Paper.
“It’s in his hands,” Labour MP Andy McDonald, member of the Socialist Campaign Group, said of Starmer’s future on the BBC’s Today programme on Monday. “If he doesn’t own the error he’s made and recognise the problem in front of him and articulate it and tell us how he’s going to deal with it, then I’m afraid it is coming to an end — if not today, certainly in the weeks and months ahead.”
If Labour loses the Gorton and Denton by-election at the end of the month, some Labour strategists think the party’s ruling body, the National Executive Committee, should ensure Andy Burnham comes back to Parliament to stand in a future leadership contest. The Mayor of Greater Manchester was blocked by a small subcommittee led by Starmer just a fortnight ago.
“It looks very much like we will lose Gorton and Denton and then the NEC could decide to take stewardship of getting the most popular Labour politician into the House of Commons,” according to one Labour strategist. “Everyone has to take their part, the main NEC committee, the unions, everyone. All the powers of subcommittees are delegated by the main committee; they just need to remember the most powerful people who have read all of the rules not just some of them.”
Starmer survives another day – because of the difficulties in removing him. But even he knows it’s a matter of when, not if.
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