Sir Keir Starmer faces being ousted as leader in months as even once-loyal allies question whether he can survive as Prime Minister after Labour’s disastrous by-election defeat in Gorton and Denton.
A consensus is forming within Labour that Starmer is now likely to remain in post until at least the May local elections but some MPs have warned him to move left to win back voters and save his job.
Ministers are also now under pressure to use next week’s spring statement as a way of showing that they can win back left-leaning voters who abandoned Labour en masse in the by-election and gave the Greens a historic victory.
Starmer said he would not consider resigning over the defeat, despite warnings from some backbenchers that his future is now in fresh doubt and that he could face a leadership challenge after the May elections.
One told The i Paper that “the feeling is terminal for Keir” but others remain cautious about “scrolling through leaders”.
A Labour insider said Starmer was “toast” but that he would keep the job until there is a “viable alternative”.
‘Tricky May election results look more fatal’ for PM
Another Labour MP said: “I think the PM has time but a tricky result in May looks more fatal.
“It’s too late for a change at the spring statement now.”
Even allies are now beginning to question whether Starmer can turn things around, with one senior MP saying Labour needs to give people a “vision that people can rally behind” and wondering whether the PM was up to the job.
“This Government is so bereft of that – random policy from everywhere on the isle and being buffeted by events all the time rather than a strong coherent vision driving policy.”
They said: “Every Labour MP is grappling with questions” about whether Starmer is too unpopular and cannot connect with voters and that “May will undoubtedly be an important barometer of where we are at.”
MPs have “absorbed the idea that a party must only change leader once in each Parliament,” the insider said – and so “it’s not a question of if Keir is bad, but is there right now a better option – someone we then have to take into the next election?”
It remains a bad time for Angela Rayner, who still needs to resolve her tax affairs, and Wes Streeting, due to his relationship with scandal-hit Peter Mandelson, to run for leader, while some MPs want to wait for Andy Burnham, who was blocked from standing this week, to get a parliamentary seat
Nevertheless, the Prime Minister faces renewed jeopardy, with former deputy leader Rayner quick out of the blocks to warn him that the result should serve as a “wake-up call”.
The result in Gorton was the clearest evidence yet that Labour faces a threat from its left, in the form of the Greens under the leadership of Zack Polanski, as well as from Reform UK on the right.
Rayner leads push for Starmer to tack to the left
Multiple Labour MPs called for their party to tack to the left with policies such as a tax on wealth in order to keep progressive voters on side – but a No 10 source told The i Paper that “now is not the time to lose our nerve and do something different”.
A Cabinet source meanwhile said Starmer needs to deliver on the “change” he has promised in involving Labour MPs more in policymaking.
Starmer also needs to give “definition” to the “Labour things” the Government is doing rather than being “shy” about them and instead becoming known for “mistakes” such as several U-turns, they suggested.
Rayner said: “This result must be a wake-up call. It’s time to really listen – and to reflect. Voters want the change that we promised – and they voted for. If we want to unrig the system, if we want to make the change we were sent into Government to make, we have to be braver.”
Some left-wingers called for more socialist policies in next week’s spring statement.
Ex-Labour MP Diane Abbott, who currently sits as an independent, told The i Paper: “The Gorton and Denton by-election should be seen as a rejection of extremism, the extremism of implementing austerity when it has already failed for 15 years, and the vile racism which says that migrants are the source of all our problems. There is an opportunity in the spring statement to move on from failure, and replace austerity with prosperity through investment.”
Richard Burgon called for “a wealth tax, public ownership of energy and water, and an ethical foreign policy that are all popular with the public.”
Simon Opher, the MP for Stroud, added: “We need to properly tax the wealthy to deliver the change we need.”
Leading trade unions, including Unison and Unite, also appealed to Starmer to push through a more left-wing policy offering in the hope it might curb the rise of the Greens.
Starmer: I’ll keep fighting
The Prime Minister said: “It’s a very disappointing result. Incumbent governments quite often get results like that mid-term, but I do understand that voters are frustrated. They’re impatient for change.
“And I came into politics late in life, as it happens, to fight for change for those people who need it, the people who need an NHS that works for them, to be able to get a doctor’s appointment when they need it, to get the money they need in their pockets to pay their bills and to have a decent and better life. And I will keep on fighting for those people for as long as I’ve got breath in my body. I will also fight against the extremes in politics on the right and the left parties who want to tear our country apart.”
A senior No 10 source said the spring statement, to be delivered on Tuesday outlining the latest economic forecasts from the fiscal watchdog, would double down on the Government’s current policies but also set out ways in which the economy now seems to be improving, including falling inflation and retail sales going up.
The source said: “We will use it to show that our plan on the economy is the right plan. Now is not the time to lose our nerve and do something different.”
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While an immediate leadership challenge to Starmer is seen as unlikely, two MPs – Jon Trickett and Brian Leishman – repeated calls for him to stand down.
An ally of Starmer said: “Clearly this will embolden people on the left of the party who think everything Keir has ever done is all a humongous strategic mistake. And there will be a fear factor for MPs in urban, inner-city seats or university town seats; we need to respond to that. But fundamentally it doesn’t change what we already knew – we face populist threats to both wings of Labour’s coalition and it’s really strategically difficult to work a way through that.”
The local elections across England in May, at the same time as ballots for the Scottish and Welsh parliaments, are seen as the next major hurdle for the Prime Minister. Labour is widely expected to lose hundreds of councillors and to slip to third place in Edinburgh and Cardiff.
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