Was it enough? We will find out later today when Labour MPs make their kangaroo court WhatsApp judgments on Sir Keir Starmer’s future and share them on X.
As Starmer took to the stage in central London, the stakes could not have been higher. More than 40 Labour MPs, from all sides of the party, have gone public calling for the Prime Minister to step down. Even though Parliament isn’t sitting until Wednesday, Labour MPs had flocked back to London to hold discussions. Others watched on TV, reserving judgment.
Some had already made up their minds, only pretending to wait to hear what he had to say before calling for him to go. Labour MP David Smith pushed the button on a long statement in which he called for a timetable for Starmer’s departure just as the Prime Minister left the stage.
When Starmer was attacked with glitter at Labour conference in 2023, he took off his jacket and rolled his sleeves up. His admirers said it made him look raring to go. He tried it again today, but minus the glitter. Literally and metaphorically.
This was a very Starmerish speech. There was no striking announcement, no radicalism. A nominal rejection of “incrementalism” without explaining what the big ideas are instead. The listener was left baffled by how opaque it all was.
Starmer talked about closer ties to the EU without explaining how he would move on from his manifesto red lines, which ruled out a customs union or freedom of movement with the bloc.
Offstage his rivals Angela Rayner, Wes Streeting and Andy Burnham are in the wings. Some Cabinet ministers have lost confidence; in the room Starmer could only muster Labour’s deputy leader Lucy Powell and party chair Anna Turley in the front row. Where were the rest of them?
Burnham loomed large over the speech. Starmer gave a small hint he would not block the Greater Manchester Mayor’s return to Parliament, only remarking it’s a matter for Labour’s ruling National Executive Committee. Previously he had been vehement in his opposition to the northerner’s comeback. But it was typically opaque. Labour MPs want clarity.
The main thrust of Starmer’s argument is that it is riskier to remove him than to keep him. His appeal to his party and to the country was, in effect, “don’t gamble on the unknown in a dangerous, unstable world”. Starmer warned that the country risks going down a “dark path,” as he stood behind a podium that read “Stronger Fairer Britain”.
He strongly hinted any replacement would leave Labour out of power. “We are not just facing dangerous times but dangerous opponents,” he said, namechecking both Reform UK leader Nigel Farage and the Greens leader Zack Polanski: “If we don’t get this right our country will go down a very dark path.” Farage, he said, is “not just a grifter, he is a chancer”.
The trouble is, having digested the local election results, lots of his MPs don’t feel the same. They think the risk of keeping Starmer in post is worse than the alternative. And lots are prepared to gamble on an alternative.
There is a split in Labour about how to deal with the competing pressures from Reform and the Greens. Starmer appeared to pick the left-leaning side, a message to traditional Labour voters in a fragmented progressive movement. There was no mention of tackling migration; instead he talked about nationalising British Steel and getting closer to Europe.
But for those MPs who want to see the Prime Minister gone sooner rather than later the same problems remain — how and when to make a move to force him out and, even more challengingly, to decide who is the best person to replace him.
“I know that people are frustrated by the state of Britain, frustrated by politics, and some people frustrated with me,” Starmer said. “I know I have my doubters, and I know I need to prove them wrong.”
Ultimately this has a core audience, the Parliamentary Labour Party. He had to convince 81 MPs not to go over the top. He’ll know soon enough if it worked.
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