When Catherine West, an obscure backbencher and former junior minister, said on Saturday she would attempt to launch a leadership bid in the days ahead she was initially greeted by ridicule.
One Labour MP described her as “not so much as a stalking horse as stalking centaur”.
But by Sunday, the mood had shifted. MPs woke to an interview Sir Keir Starmer had given to The Observer in which the Prime Minister claimed he would serve another decade in office and seek closer ties to the European Union. To those who thought his reaction to devastating English council and Welsh Senedd losses to Reform UK last week had been hollow and unconvincing, it was the final straw.
MPs who had been laughing at West were now taking her seriously. More worrying for Starmer, those MPs who had been previously loyal in public and in private were beginning to say they would lend her support for a challenge. A streak of nihilism started to spread through some Labour MPs who just want something – anything – to happen.
On Sunday West said if a planned reset speech by Starmer on Monday fails to signal a sufficient change of direction toward bolder policies she would be forced to stand.
“We need to install a new leader who can take us towards beating Reform in the general election to come and give us a second term,” West told the BBC on Sunday. She added that she’d had “lots of interest” from Labour MPs but wouldn’t formally ask for their support until after she’d heard Starmer’s comments.
She repeatedly declined to say whether she’d be able to win the support of 20 per cent of Labour MPs – a total of 81 – and cross the threshold required by the party’s rulebook to trigger a leadership election.
Around 30 Labour MPs, mostly on the left of the party, have called for Starmer either to resign or to set a timetable for departure. Now those calls are coming from the right as well.
“Unless the Prime Minister can pull off the speech of the century tomorrow then I think she will probably get the 81 names,” a right-of-centre Labour MP told The i Paper.
Another Labour MP who describes themselves as “centrist, not soft left,” said they were prepared to lend West their name to get to the required 81. “If she needs to get over the line, I’ll do it,” they told The i Paper.
Starmer “can’t say anything tomorrow that will be enough. He keeps on f***ing saying things, and then nothing happens,” the MP added.
A third Labour MP questioned: “What can he possibly say that will make a difference?”
On Sunday morning, Labour MP Josh Simons, an architect of Starmerism, called for the Prime Minister to resign.
“Putting the people I represent and the country I love first, I do not believe the Prime Minister can rise to this moment,” he wrote in an op-ed in The Times. “He has lost the country. He should take control of the situation by overseeing an orderly transition to a new prime minister,” Simons wrote.
Having resigned as minister earlier this year after it emerged that he had hired lobbyists while at Labour Together who had investigated the backgrounds of two journalists, Simons had little chance of promotion. Nonetheless, his intervention was deemed significant because of his right-wing allegiances within Labour.
Less surprising was Sharon Graham, the general secretary of Unite, urging Starmer to define a timetable for his departure from office. She is a longstanding critic of the Prime Minister.
Starmer will try to use his reset speech on Monday and the King’s Speech on Wednesday to set out his fresh legislative agenda and persuade Labour MPs that he can turn the party’s fortunes around.
The speech is expected to include some fresh policy and a renewed pledge to seek closer relations with the EU. Starmer will also talk about security, a better offer for young people and tackling violence against women and girls.
But multiple Labour MPs warned however passionate or persuasive Starmer is, his remarks are unlikely to help after such a drubbing at the polls last week in which Labour lost more than 1,460 council seats across the country.
“I don’t think it’s just going to be about tomorrow, it just can’t be about tomorrow,” a Cabinet minister told The i Paper on Sunday, urging colleagues to look at the Government’s programme as a whole: “It has to be more in terms of what we’re doing.”
“I know things are tough at the moment, but I’m not convinced a leadership contest is the answer. The overwhelming majority of the Cabinet are still with Keir, and we want Keir to succeed. It’s his responsibility, but it genuinely is our responsibility as well. We’ve got to take it and turn it around,” they added.
A leadership contest “is just fraught with danger” and “it will be a contest no one will get through without being challenged. Just be careful what you wish for,” the Cabinet minister added.
A Labour source said West was gathering support at pace and even if she doesn’t reach the threshold to launch a formal challenge, she will be in a position to make demands of the Prime Minister. Some party sources suggested she could present two options to Starmer: to have a contest right away or to set a timetable for his departure.
Overseeing a transition is the preferred option of soft-left backers of Mayor of Greater Manchester Andy Burnham, who needs the time to find a Parliamentary seat and persuade Labour’s ruling National Executive Committee to allow him to abandon the mayoralty early.
“We need to discuss how we go forward and I worry some in [the] shadows want to exploit her concerns and bounce us before we have a proper democratic process,” veteran left-wing Labour MP John McDonnell said on X of West’s bid.
The major beneficiary of a speedy leadership race would be Health Secretary Wes Streeting, who is understood to have sufficient parliamentary support to run. While former Deputy Labour leader Angela Rayner is still awaiting the outcome of an HMRC inquiry into her tax affairs, her allies have also not ruled out her entering any contest.
Allies of both Streeting and Rayner have said neither wants to be prime mover in any contest to risk looking disloyal and be punished by the party membership. But as one Labour source pointed out: “They aren’t the first movers anymore if Catherine West has started the race.”
West has “tapped into the mutterings that have existed within the PLP [parliamentary Labour Party] for the last few days, that people are completely fed up, and that there are enough colleagues who are so fed up that even if might not get over the line she’ll get very close to it,” the source added.
Several Labour MPs also said Starmer’s interview with The Observer had gone down exceptionally badly. He told the newspaper he would lead Labour into the next election, due in 2029, and then serve a full second term – something one Labour MP claimed he had been advised not to say.
Some compared Starmer’s promise to former Tony Blair’s misjudged attempt to bat away criticism by vowing to fight on. That only served to enrage his critics further and ultimately hasten his exit. A Labour Party source said the 10 years gambit had sped up Starmer’s departure.
“There were people two days ago who were saying, oh, you know, maybe Keir gets a year, maybe six months, and now it’s like, ‘is he gonna see the end of next week?’,” the source said.
MPs and party sources also said appointing veterans former prime minister Gordon Brown and former Deputy Leader Harriet Harman to advisory roles had fallen flat. Both are aged 75 and their appointment “does not shout future,” as one Labour MP put it.
Another was much ruder. “Talk about ‘bring out your dead’,” the MP quipped.
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