When Angela Rayner finally commented in the wake of Labour’s election humiliation, it was a brutal takedown of Sir Keir Starmer’s record.
“What we are doing isn’t working, and it needs to change. This may be our last chance,” she declared.
The former deputy prime minister called on Starmer to end a “toxic culture of cronyism” and to allow the Mayor of Greater Manchester, Andy Burnham, to return to Westminster.
Rayner offered her prescription for how Labour should “meet the moment”, and she set out a left-wing shopping list of demands.
Her demands include taxing the wealthy, cutting household costs, ending the freehold system, raising the minimum wage, giving regional mayors more powers over planning and licensing and boosting community ownership.
“Labour exists to make working people better off. That is not happening fast enough, and it needs to change — now,” she said.
Rayner’s comments came at the end of a difficult day for the prime minister as Labour MPs openly debated whether there should be an immediate leadership contest.
Backbencher threatens Starmer with leadership challenge
His fate now partly rests in how his speech is received by an obscure backbencher, Catherine West, a little-known former junior minister, who has threatened a leadership challenge if his speech fails to signal bolder policies.
MPs who had been previously loyal, in public and in private, were beginning to say on Sunday that they would lend her support for a challenge.
More than two dozen MPs, from the left and right of the party, have called for Starmer either to resign or to set a timetable for departure.
Among them was Josh Simons, previously a Starmer loyalist, who said the Prime Minister had “lost the country”.
Labour’s leader in Scotland, Anas Sarwar, also blamed a “national wave” against Labour for his party’s defeat in the Holyrood election, with his party down to 17 MSPs.
Leftwingers in the party were in a state of panic amid fears that a stalking horse candidate would boost Health Secretary Wes Streeting’s chances of becoming prime minister, because Burnham is barred from standing until he becomes an MP.
John McDonnell, Richard Burgon and Ian Byrne, MPs from Labour’s socialist wing, called for the timetable to be delayed and urged West to hold off making a challenge.
“Keir Starmer needs to go. But not through a Cabinet stitch-up or palace coup. And not through a snap leadership election run under rule changes designed by Morgan McSweeney/Labour Together in order to hand someone like Wes Streeting a coronation,” Burgon wrote on X.
Cabinet is not rallying around the Prime Minister
A Cabinet minister admitted to The i Paper that Starmer no longer enjoys the support of all members of his Cabinet but said: “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.”
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 minister added.
Streeting is understood to be waiting to see how Starmer performs on Monday.
“Wes is in the position that most of the Parliamentary Labour Party (PLP) and Cabinet are in – they do still feel loyalty to Keir because of everything he has done for the party, so he deserves a chance to get us out of this,” an ally of Streeting told The i Paper.
Allies of Streeting and Rayner have insisted neither wants to be the 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 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 she might not get over the line, she’ll get very close to it,” the source added.
Sir Keir Starmer will try to use Monday’s speech and the King’s Speech on Wednesday to set out his fresh legislative agenda (Photo: Leon Neal/Getty)Rayner’s endorsement of a return for Burnham was seen as a sign that she does not necessarily consider herself to be a candidate to replace Starmer and that she could be part of a new soft-left leadership team.
Rayner, who has yet to receive a ruling from HMRC on her tax affairs, has suffered from a string of negative stories about her in recent weeks.
Burnham has yet to comment after Labour’s seismic losses in last week’s elections, and some MPs harbour doubts about his plans to return as an MP.
One Labour MP told The i Paper said of efforts to delay a leadership challenge: “They are definitely trying to delay the inevitable to allow Andy Burnham a chance to get in. Is that serving the party’s best interests? I can’t see that it is. Burnham had really bad results in Greater Manchester. We now have the evidence to show we would lose the Greater Manchester mayoralty.
“It’s all a bit never-never, he’s the prince over the water as they’re trying to define him, but he’s a bit of a fantasy figure. I’m not sure he is many of the things that his supporters think he is.”
Some MPs were still talking up the possibility of another way through with a caretaker leader. “I do think we are end of days now,” another Labour MP told The i Paper.
“I would hope that Cabinet would meet at some point in the coming week ask Starmer to step down and they choose among themselves a candidate to become leader, which I would hope would be someone like John Healey or Hillary Benn, who’s not part of any faction but it is an experienced practitioner of government… and have a period of stability and then perhaps in a year or 18-months’ time, look at having a leadership contest.”
Starmer will try to use Monday’s speech 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.
But several Labour MPs warned that, however passionate or persuasive Starmer is, his remarks are unlikely to help after such a drubbing at the polls last week, when Labour lost more than 1,460 council seats across England.
A Labour source said West was gathering support at pace and even if she doesn’t reach the threshold of the backing of 81 MPs 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 set a timetable for his departure.
A source on the right of the party suggested the left’s attempts to talk West down would not work. “It does feel like there are 80 MPs who feel like this,” the source said.
Could Ed Miliband challenge Starmer?
Energy Secretary Ed Miliband may stand if a leadership race develops this week, multiple MPs said, even though he has repeatedly ruled himself out. “There will have to be a ‘Stop-Wes’ candidate,” one MP said.
Burnham and Miliband have been talking with Rayner about a new “project” to move Labour to the left, according to sources close to the discussions.
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.
Even before Starmer’s make or break speech, expectations were already low. “Obviously, Keir’s big, huge problem is he can’t communicate,” a Labour MP said. “That’s what I think the issue is. Unfortunately, he has an expressionless face and an irritating voice. For people who only watch politics for like five seconds of the week, that’s a big thing for him. Add in the fact that people think he’s incompetent as well.”
“He may bring out of the bag tomorrow an incredible speech where he suddenly meets the political moment, but he’s never done that before, so I wouldn’t hold my breath,” another Labour MP said, dismissively.
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