Following a rebellion from the Scottish Labour leader, Starmer has survived his week from hell, but his government is on life support. Starmer has survived his Chief of Staff’s and Head of Communication’s resignations, an attempted coup by Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar and revelations regarding Madelson’s relationship with sex-offender Epstein. Despite this tsunami of problems, he has remained defiant, telling a meeting of voters on Monday, that he would “never walk away from the country I love”.
Many of his opponents have drawn parallels from this statement to Theresa Mays defeated resignation speech. So, what has put pressure on for him to resign and has he got enough political capital to survive past the May elections?
The scene for this crisis turned coup was set by the political firestorm following Starmer’s a pointment of Lord Mandelson as the Ambassador to the US. This caused controversy, as it was unearthed that Mandelson not only stayed in contact with sex-offender Jeffery Epstein longer than he had told the No. 10 vetting team, but he also passed market sensitive government information to Epstein, during the Brown Government. This led to Starmer’s Chief of Staff (Morgan McSweeney) resigning and stating, “I take full responsibility”. This also led to the Met Police announcing they were launching enquiries into Mandelson over allegations of misconduct in public office.
The first sign that last week would be Starmer’s last as Prime Minister came when, following a rousing speech to the staff of No.10, his Chief of Communications (Tim Allen) promptly resigned. This came after just 5 months with Allen in the post and directly followed the resignation of M Sweeney on Sunday. Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch told broadcasters that this was “another sign that Starmer has lost control of his government.”.
Many predicted the resignation of Starmer’s most senior civil servant (Cabinet Secretary Chris Wormald) to also follow but no one could have foreseen the dramatic beginning and failure of the attempted coup by the devolved Labour leaders.
Following this resignation, the BBC announced both Welsh First Minister Eluned Morgan and Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar intended to call for Starmer to resign as PM, to save their chances in Mays devolved elections.
However, despite Sarwar leading the attempted coup, with a speech stating, “The distraction needs to end”, Morgan did not follow through with her expected call for the PM to resign. She instead offering a lukewarm statement of support for Starmer stating “the country needs stability” but criticising the governments ignorance towards the worries of the women and girls affected by Epstein and the Mandelson scandal. Morgan also called for the PM to deliver more for Wales to tackle the cost of living and to have a “Stronger commitment to devolution”.
Unfortunately for Sarwar, it appeared that Morgan had hung him out to dry.
With the coup losing support, Starmer began decisively gathering both his Cabinet and the Parliamentary Labour Party (PLP), to shore up support and prevent a Macbeth style regicide. Firstly, he chaired Cabinet, where he received emphatic support, with Ministers emphasising the size of his mandate and even his heir apparent (Health Secretary Wes Streeting) stating that the PM had his “full support”. Starmer then moved to a meeting of the PLP who offered him a standing ovation and in return, the PM promised to change how Downing Street approached government.
However, he did warn his rivals that “I have won every fight I have ever been in”.
Starmer made good with his promise to the PLP immediately with the resignation of Chris Wormald as Cabinet Secretary on Wednesday. Despite this being a resignation, Wormald likely jumped before he was pushed.
However, Starmer’s leadership is far from safe. The Labour Party still faces its worst ever result in a Senedd election this May and many MPs are still choosing their preferred leadership candidate when (not if) Starmer resigns. Labour is currently predicted to lose 29% of their votes compared to 2021, which will leave them with only 10 seats in the Senedd after the election.
This would be a devastating loss for Labour, making them the 3rd largest party in the Senedd for the first time and may push the party to look for a new leader before May, to combat the nationalist wave of support for Plaid Cymru and Reform UK.
Some PLP MPs hope this leadership election will come sooner rather than later, with one Streeting supporter stating, “We need to act quickly” and that, “Wes has the numbers, but it will require a steeliness and a determination that most colleagues have not to date shown”.
With the coup defeated, Starmer’s government is still on life support and his latest Uturn on the delaying of local elections, shows further weakness for his administration.
Both his time and his political capital are close to running out. Just like 5 Conservative PM’s before him, Starmer’s leadership is exposing division and chaos within the governing party, and both voters patience and time before the May deadline is slipping away, though for many in Labour, it is far too late.