Is Sir Keir Starmer safe in his job?
For now, yes.
Sir Keir got to a position on Monday afternoon where Anas Sarwar, the Scottish Labour leader, was about to call for his head and most of the cabinet were conspicuously silent.
Many in Westminster concluded that the prime minister would not see out the day without resigning – and that included at least some officials in Downing Street.
It’s worth remembering how fragile things were at that point just to emphasise the scale of the political achievement from Sir Keir and his team in recovering control.
As Sarwar stood up in Glasgow to call for the prime minister’s resignation, the crucial moment came from David Lammy, the deputy prime minister – posting on X that Sir Keir’s “massive mandate” should be respected.
It triggered a cascade of similar messages from the rest of the cabinet and, before long, other ministers, MPs and Labour powerbrokers too.
This show of support was the product of an intense rearguard action from Sir Keir’s inner team, some of them in interim positions after days of turmoil.
They gathered in the cabinet room, temporarily and dramatically dubbed the ‘war room’, to hit the phones – instructing ministers to declare their support for the PM and providing them with suggested forms of words to use.
When Sarwar and Sir Keir had a brief and acrimonious call at about 1330 on Monday, Sir Keir is said to have responded with a volley of questions. Who would replace him? How would they improve Labour’s prospects? Is there a plan?
Similar questions were then posed by Sir Keir’s war room to MPs wobbling over whether to back a coup.
How long is Sir Keir safe for?
Midway through Monday, Sir Keir was fighting for survival hour by hour.
He is no longer in that position, but the next pinch points are likely to come in weeks rather than months.
It is important to be realistic – as those around the prime minister are – about what the endorsements he received yesterday do and do not mean.
Yes, in some quarters, there is total incomprehension at the idea of replacing a landslide-winning leader, and fury at Sarwar’s intervention.
One cabinet minister raged at me – with expletives removed: “Who does he think he is to try to bring down a Labour government? I like him but I’m furious. I get that he’s upset he probably won’t be first minister but he doesn’t need to drag the rest of us down with him. It’s a disgrace.”
But others are privately clear that their endorsements are time-limited and that they are essentially reserving their position.
In some cases, that is until the May elections, which now take on an even greater significance at Westminster, never mind their important consequences for who runs the devolved governments and councils across England.
Yet some believe another crisis could come in less than three weeks after the Gorton and Denton by-election, where Labour are challenged by the Greens to their left and Reform UK to their right.
Source link
