Sir Keir Starmer faces the biggest leadership crisis of his premiership as Cabinet ministers including the Home Secretary reportedly urged him to consider his position and Government aides quit their posts.
Shabana Mahmood is said to have privately called for an orderly transition of power on Monday night as 75 out of Labour’s 403 MPs demanded the Prime Minister stand down after the party’s electoral mauling last week.
Four Government aides quit their posts citing a loss of confidence in his leadership while others warned his authority was collapsing and called for him to set out a timetable for his departure from No 10.
Sir Keir faces an extraordinary weekly Cabinet meeting on Tuesday morning, with senior ministers split over how best to move forward and concerns among some about plunging the party into a potential leadership contest.
The Press Association understands Defence Secretary John Healey’s message to Sir Keir was that he wanted a chaotic process to be avoided and for the Government to focus on getting the country through the looming risk of geopolitical and economic crises rather than turning inwards.
In a sign of the febrile atmosphere in Westminster on Monday evening, junior health minister Stephen Kinnock said some Cabinet members “may well” call for the Prime Minister to go at Tuesday’s meeting.
“It is possible that members of the Cabinet might do that. I genuinely have no idea at all. What I am simply saying is any one of my colleagues who is potentially thinking of doing that, I just hope they really will take a beat, pause and reflect, and think about the potential that has for the chaos that might be unleashed,” he told BBC Newsnight.
The Prime Minister promised to prove his “doubters” wrong at a press conference on Monday as former minister Catherine West withdrew threats to imminently launch a leadership challenge.
But his speech failed to quell demands that he quit or set out a timetable for his departure from discontented MPs, who continued to call for his resignation.
Ms West had previously said she would challenge Sir Keir for the party leadership as early as Monday afternoon, in an attempt to force the Cabinet to put forward a replacement as prime minister.
After Sir Keir insisted he would not “walk away”, the former Foreign Office minister said she would now canvass support within the party for the Prime Minister to set out a timetable for his resignation by September.
PA understands that 80 MPs have signed a letter from Ms West urging Sir Keir to take this step, most of whom have publicly expressed their loss of confidence in his leadership.
Meanwhile, Joe Morris, a parliamentary private secretary (PPS) to Health Secretary Wes Streeting, and Tom Rutland, a PPS to Environment Secretary Emma Reynolds, Cabinet Office aide Naushabah Khan and Melanie Ward, a PPS to Deputy Prime Minister David Lammy, all quit on Monday evening.
Department for Work and Pensions aide Gordon McKee and Ms Mahmood’s PPS Sally Jameson also left their posts having expressed a loss of confidence in the Prime Minister.
Downing Street did not immediately respond to the resignations, but loyalist MPs David Burton-Sampson, Linsey Farnsworth, Jayne Kirkham, Michael Payne, Tim Roca and Sean Woodcock were appointed to PPS positions later in the evening.
The Guardian reported that Ms Mahmood and Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper had both spoken with the Prime Minister about his future, while the Times reported a third Cabinet minister had also told Sir Keir to consider his position.
Speculation about the Prime Minister’s future has intensified since Thursday’s elections, in which Labour lost almost 1,500 English councillors, went backwards in Scotland and slumped to third place in Wales.
In a speech in central London on Monday, Sir Keir said he took “responsibility” for the losses but would fight on and cast the current political moment as a “battle for the soul” of the UK, warning that if Labour failed, the country would head down “a very dark path”.
The Prime Minister is expected to meet apprentices on Tuesday to talk up the Government’s reforms to the system aimed at helping small businesses take on young apprentices, with training fully funded from August.
The visit is a bid to highlight his promise to tear up the “status quo” which he said on Monday had failed British people and underline efforts to put apprenticeships on an equal footing with university degrees.
A handful of backbenchers spoke up in support of the Prime Minister following the speech, with Macclesfield MP Mr Roca and Gedling’s Mr Payne saying Sir Keir had demonstrated he understood “the scale of the challenge” facing the country.
Mr Streeting, who is widely seen as a potential leadership contender but has publicly denied plans for a tilt at the top job, was understood not to have spoken to Sir Keir as of Monday evening.
But the resignation of his PPS, who called for a “swift” timetable to replace the Prime Minister, and others seen as Streeting allies such as Ms Ward, who urged a “rapid process” to find a new leader, have fuelled speculation that he is gearing up to run in any contest.
In contrast, supporters of Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham, who is seen as a party favourite to replace Sir Keir, are wary of a quick leadership election because he would need to fight and win a by-election to become an MP first in order to further his own ambitions.
In a speech to the Communication Workers Union on Monday, former deputy prime minister Angela Rayner – herself regarded as a potential leadership contender – said the decision to block Mr Burnham should be “put right”.
“We as a party have to do better than this and we can only prove we mean our Labour values by putting the common interest ahead of factionalism,” she said.
