Keir Starmer wants to continue, but the revolt against him reaches the cabinet

It was perhaps Keir Starmer’s speech of a lifetime, about whether or not to be the Prime Minister. On Monday morning, Starmer addressed the public with a half-hour speech, reacting to the disastrous result for Labor in last week’s local and regional elections. At the same time, he stood up to critics within the party who are calling for his resignation.

For once he did not appear in front of his audience in a statesmanlike suit and tie, but only in a shirt. With sleeves rolled up, literally and figuratively. Apparently he didn’t want to present himself as the boring technocrat and procrastinator that he is often portrayed as, but rather as a people-oriented doer.

Commitment to Europe

The key point of his half-hour speech was the observation that there is deep frustration with the status quo and that incremental improvements are not enough. This was surprising because many critics, including those in his own party, see him as an administrator of stagnation and lacking the courage to make far-reaching changes.

Starmer didn’t want to know anything about resigning. He admitted that the results of the elections were devastating. But the conclusion he draws from the fiasco is not to give up. On the contrary, he wants to work even more intensively on implementing his agenda. From his point of view, it would be cowardly to shirk responsibility now. His resolution is to work even harder.

What is probably most talked about is his commitment to Europe, which he has never expressed so clearly before. It was also an attack on Brexit campaigner Nigel Farage and his Reform UK party, which achieved a triumphant election result last week and thereby massively changed the balance of power in British politics.

Farage promised to make Great Britain richer and safer through Brexit; In addition, immigration would be throttled, said Starmer. In fact, the opposite happened. After leaving the European Union, Great Britain became poorer and more insecure, and immigration even increased. But Farage avoids this topic and talks about everything except the consequences of Brexit.

Starmer promised a rapprochement with the EU. He wanted to bring Great Britain back into the heart of Europe, he said, without being too specific.

His speech was peppered with reminiscences of his working-class background and memories of his family’s economic problems. He spoke a lot about the difficulties of British industry, about the future of children and young people, about training opportunities and social fairness. It was clear that he wanted to counter the accusation that Labor was no longer the party of workers and had become the representative of the urban middle class.

West rushes forward and crawls back

The question now is whether Starmer has managed to convince his group that he is the best person to lead the party out of the crisis. Labor MP Catherine West gave him an ultimatum at the weekend: If no one in his cabinet runs against him by Monday, she will do it herself.

On Monday afternoon she made negative comments about Starmer’s speech, but refrained from challenging him directly. She said only that she was collecting signatures in parliament to force him to resign by September.

Her advance at the weekend did not mean that she actually had ambitions for the office of prime minister. That would also be presumptuous, because it is too insignificant for that. But she acted as what is known in Britain as a “stalking horse”. She wanted to go ahead to test how far Starmer’s support still extends. If she had been able to attract at least 81 MPs to her side, the leadership election campaign would have been formally opened. Then the political heavyweights who had not yet wanted to officially oppose Starmer would have jumped on the bandwagon.

The health minister Wes Streeting, the former deputy prime minister Angela Rayner and the mayor of Greater Manchester, Andy Burnham, are being discussed as possible candidates. But Burnham would first have to be elected to the House of Commons in a by-election. Rayner is probably too left-wing for many, and Streeting’s downfall is likely to be his closeness to Peter Mandelson, the former ambassador to Washington whose previous ties to sex offender Jeffrey Epstein have dominated politics in London for months.

Catherine West’s decline could be an indication that she was unable to rally the necessary number of MPs behind her. So it’s entirely possible that Starmer will hold out, at least for the time being. Not because he electrified his group and voters with his speech, but simply because there was no suitable opposing candidate.

The crisis is not over. In a speech to a union on Monday afternoon, Rayner did not directly challenge the prime minister, but he did strongly criticize Labor’s current course. Workers were turning to populists and nationalists because Labor was not doing enough for them, she said. More than 70 Labor MPs are now publicly calling for Starmer’s resignation or at least a timetable for an orderly transition. This means the uprising is approaching the threshold of 81 MPs that would be needed to formally trigger a leadership election.

According to the British media, Interior Minister Shabana Mahmood is also one of the cabinet members who are pushing Starmer for an orderly transition. The resistance against Starmer has reached a new quality.