Will the embattled PM even make it to the New Year in No. 10?
KEVIN SCHOFIELD
Morgan McSweeney, prime minister Keir Starmer’s most trusted adviser, was sent out to bat for his boss this week.
The No.10 chief of staff went to committee room 4A in the House of Lords to face Labour peers, field their questions and explain how he and the PM plan to dig the government out of the deep hole in which it finds itself.
More than 80 of them turned up, including party grandees like former leader Neil Kinnock, George Robertson and Margaret Hodge.
As one peer present pointed out to HuffPost UK, they are not generally the toughest of crowds.
“We listen to what people have to say and politely applaud afterwards,” he said. “It’s not exactly Friday night at the Glasgow Empire.”
Nevertheless, it did not go well for McSweeney or, by extension, Keir Starmer.
One peer said: “It was like a car crash in slow motion. If you’re going to come down from No.10 to see us, you need to come out fighting, say this is the mess we inherited, this is what’s going wrong and this is how we’re going to fix it.
“But there was no energy, no ideas and he didn’t have any answers to our questions. It was really very damaging.”
Another Lord in the room said: “McSweeney might be a good political campaigner, but he isn’t a chief of staff because he’s not getting things done.
“He just kept saying he noted our concerns and would report back. It was a really depressing meeting.”
Barely 24 hours later, the already-sulphurous mood in the Parliamentary Labour Party (PLP) got even worse when the result of the Caerphilly by-election confirmed their worst fears.
Plaid Cymru won with 47% of the vote, bringing to an end more than a century of Labour dominance in the constituency.
Labour’s Richard Tunnicliffe trailed in a miserable third place with just 11% of the vote, well behind the second placed Reform candidate Llyr Powell.
“By any objective assessment, it’s an absolute disaster,” said one senior Labour source.
“If it had happened under Jeremy Corbyn, the party would be in absolute meltdown, and rightly so. It was even worse than our most pessimistic scenario.”
One Labour frontbencher summed up the gloom which has now descended on the PLP and shows no sign of lifting.
“It’s just added to the toaster-in-the-bath mood among MPs,” he said. “If there is any attempt to blame party staff, the campaign, Welsh Labour or the candidate, it will backfire badly.”
Increasing numbers of Labour MPs and peers have long since come to the conclusion that the blame lies with one man – Starmer himself.
“It’s not working, it’s not going to work and the sooner he goes, the better,” said one veteran peer.
While next May’s elections in Wales, Scotland and across England – where Labour are on course for another drubbing – are still seen as the most likely time for the PM to be removed, a growing number now believe he may not even see in the New Year in Downing Street.
“I think people are now in a place where they believe this can’t continue and we can’t go into massive midterm elections with him in charge,” one insider told HuffPost UK.
“The chances of him being gone my Christmas is massively under-priced. People will let the Budget happen at the end of November, and then there could be a move against him.
“If a new leader comes in then and puts 5% on the polls, suddenly things look a lot better. We don’t get utterly decimated in Wales, the Scottish result is a bit better and you save a whole load of councillors.”
“It’s not working, it’s not going to work and the sooner he goes the better”
A Labour peer said: “I get the argument about leaving it till May and letting a new leader come in and pick up the pieces, but that’s easy for MPs to say because it’s not their jobs on the line.
“What about all the poor councillors who’ll lose their seats? Those are the foot soldiers we’re going to need come the next election.
“Even those who I would describe as loyalists think he can’t last, and the rest of us have made up our minds as well.”
If he does end up being ousted, Starmer’s critics say he will only have himself to blame.
Never the most clubbable of politicians, the PM is rarely seen in the Commons, where many of his predecessors could be seen chatting to their MPs, listening to their concerns and getting a feel for the mood within the party.
In the past two months he has only taken part in four parliamentary votes, all of which happened on the same day.
Starmer’s decision to delegate sackings in his recent reshuffle, rather than deliver the bad news himself, also went down badly among MPs, and swelled the ranks of the disaffected.
It has not gone unnoticed that health secretary Wes Streeting, tipped by many as a potential successor, has been particularly active in recent months, including doing the raffle at a Labour Friends of Scotland event last Tuesday night.
“He’s regularly in Strangers Bar chatting to MPs and doing favours for them – and he’s right to do so,” said one former minister.
Lucy Powell, one of those sacked in the reshuffle, is expected to defeat education secretary Bridget Phillipson to become Labour’s deputy leader when the result is announced on Saturday.
That will be seen as the party membership passing a damning verdict on the government’s performance so far, and therefore another blow for Starmer.
One experienced Labour figure did offer a glimmer of hope for the embattled PM, however.
He said: “The thing that’s keeping him there is that they’ve not changed the rules by which you elect leaders and deputy leaders. It’s still in the hands of members, who by definition are not representative of the wider electorate.
“The person who would probably win at the moment is Ed Miliband or Angela Rayner, neither of whom are up to it. Wes might be in five or ten years, but he’s not match fit yet. There is no viable alternative.
“I think he’ll probably be in there longer than people think, unless he says I can’t take any more of this and just decides to go.”
Whatever the timing, it is becoming increasingly clear that it is a matter of when, rather than if, Starmer’s ill-starred time as PM comes to an end.
This article (End Of The Keir Show: How Senior Labour Figures Now Believe Starmer Is Already Toast) was created and published by Huff Post and is republished here under “Fair Use” with attribution to the author Kevin Schofield
See Related Article Below
Burnham allies warn Starmer ‘time is running out’ after by-election defeat
Left-wing group Mainstream says voters’ patience is ‘wearing thin’ and ‘faith in Labour is slipping away’
AMY GIBBONS, DOMINIC PENNA, RUBY CLINE
A Labour faction backed by Andy Burnham has warned Sir Keir Starmer that “time is short” after the party suffered a humiliating by-election defeat.
Mainstream, the new soft-Left group supported by the Greater Manchester mayor, warned that Labour will be wiped out in the Welsh Parliament elections next May “without a major reset.”
In a stinging broadside at Sir Keir’s record to date, it added: “Time is short. We promised the British people a decade of national renewal. Their patience is wearing thin, and their faith in Labour is slipping away.”
Labour was beaten at a pivotal Senedd by-election by Welsh nationalists Plaid Cymru on Thursday, bringing to an end its 100-year hold on the former mining town of Caerphilly.
It is the first time Labour has lost a parliamentary vote in the former mining town in more than a century, signalling a collapse in support that will fray nerves in Downing Street.
Labour collapsed from 35 per cent of the vote in 2021 to just 11 per cent. Plaid Cymru won with 15,961 votes, while Reform came second with 12,113 votes amid a surge in voter turnout.
The poll signals a likely wipeout for Labour at May’s Senedd elections, which coincide with local elections, and is seen as a moment of maximum political danger for the Prime Minister.
Mr Burnham has refused to rule out challenging Sir Keir for Labour leadership in the future despite not currently being an MP.
[…]
Richard Burgon, the Labour MP for Leeds East and a former shadow cabinet minister, directly blamed Sir Keir for the defeat in Caerphilly.
Mr Burgon told The Telegraph: “The historic loss of Caerphilly is the direct result of the disastrous direction taken by the national Labour leadership – from the mess around winter fuel payments to cuts to disability support.
“To rebuild our support, Labour must start governing with real Labour values. The cost-of-living crisis remains the biggest issue in British politics.
‘Catastrophic’ result
Labour is currently trailing Reform by more than 10 points in Westminster opinion polls, while the Caerphilly vote suggests that Plaid Cymru is on course to oust Labour at the Senedd.
Last month, Mr Burnham said that MPs are privately urging him to challenge Sir Keir for the leadership.
At Labour’s annual conference in Liverpool, he appeared to climb down from a leadership challenge but nonetheless continued to criticise Sir Keir’s record and policies.
Membership of Mainstream’s interim council includes Baroness Lister, the Labour peer, and Alex Sobel, the Labour MP for Leeds Central and Headingley.
So far, Clive Lewis – also a supporter of Mainstream – has been the only Labour MP to publicly call for Sir Keir to quit.
Mr Lewis said the Caerphilly result was “catastrophic”, adding: “The attempt to claim we’re ‘listening and speeding up change’ rings hollow when voters reject the very version of change on offer.”
Another Labour MP, speaking on condition of anonymity, agreed with Mr Lewis that it was time for Sir Keir to leave No 10.
The MP told The Telegraph: “His days as Prime Minister need to come to an end sooner rather than later.”
The Telegraph: continue reading
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