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‘I’m not prepared to walk away from my mandate,’ Starmer says
Speaking during a meeting of the parliamentary Labour party, Keir Starmer told MPs and peers he is “not prepared to walk away” from his mandate as prime minister.
Starmer said:
I have won every fight I’ve ever been in.
I fought to change the Crown Prosecution Service so it better served victims of violence against women and girls. I fought to change the Labour Party to allow us to win an election again.
People told me I couldn’t do it. And then they gradually said, you might just get over the line.
We won with a landslide majority. Every fight I’ve been in, I have won.
Starmer went on to say he has had “detractors every step along the way, and I’ve got them now.
“Detractors that don’t want a Labour government at all, and certainly not one to succeed,” he added.
“But I’ll tell you this, after having fought so hard for the chance to change our country, I’m not prepared to walk away from my mandate and my responsibility to my country, or to plunge us into chaos, as others have done.”
Key events
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‘I’m not prepared to walk away from my mandate,’ Starmer says
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Wes Streeting says he has ‘nothing to hide’ over relationship with Mandelson and shares private text messages
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Analysis: Sarwar has shown his ruthless streak, but will his swipe at Starmer mean anything to voters?
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Starmer addresses parliamentary Labour party amid Mandelson scandal fallout
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Reed announces extra £440m for council areas ‘hardest hit by historic cuts’
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Bill to remove Mandelson’s peerage likely to be general one aimed to rogue peers, Jones tells MPs
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John Swinney says Anas Sarwar’s call for Starmer to resign shows he’s ‘an opportunist’
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Deputy Labour leader Lucy Powell backs Starmer, suggesting he has agreed to be more ‘inclusive and collaborative’
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Farage claims Reform UK has ‘broken mould of British politics’, succeeding where Roy Jenkins failed
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Liz Kendall says Starmer should stay as PM because voters ‘sick of all changes in leadership’ under Tories
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Jones says government wants to stop MPs having second jobs with ‘very limited exemptions’
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Appointments to roles with access to secret material won’t be announced until vetting finished, Jones says
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Jones says government will legislate ‘to ensure peerages can be removed from disgraced peers’
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Darren Jones tells MPs Epstein scandal shows need for ‘wider changes in culture and use of power’
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Streeting backs Starmer, saying he ‘doesn’t need to resign’
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Revealed: ‘Rayner for leader’ site briefly went live in January
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Rayner says Starmer has her ‘full support’ as Labour gets on with changing things
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Starmer receives public statements of support from every member of his cabinet
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Douglas Alexander says Starmer accepts Labour must ‘change how we do government’ as he expresses support for PM
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David Lammy and Rachel Reeves take lead as cabinet minsters rally behind Starmer
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Sarwar says it causes ‘hurt and pain’ turning on Starmer, but his first loyalty has to be Scotland
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Sarwar says he’s not backing alternative candidate for Labour leader
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Sarwar says there have been ‘too many mistakes’ from Starmer, and Labour’s achievements being ‘drowned out’
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Sarwar says he’s calling for Starmer to quit because ‘failures’ in No 10 means SNP failures ‘continue here in Scotland’
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Anas Sarwar holds press conference
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SNP criticises Sarwar for only calling for Starmer’s resignation now, claiming his judgment flawed when he used to back him
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Labour MP Graham Stringer says Starmer ‘cannot survive this amount of chaos’
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Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar to call for Starmer’s resignation at 2.30pm press conference
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Darren Jones expected to announce post-Mandelson tougher standards rules in statement to MPs this afternoon
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Green leader Zack Polanski says Starmer should resign for ‘totally unacceptable failure of leadership’
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No 10 claims Starmer ‘positive, confident and determined’, despite resignation of two key aides within 24 hours
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What commentators are saying about Starmer’s plight
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Starmer tells No 10 staff politics can be ‘force for good’ and says government moving forward ‘with confidence’
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Allan’s resignation leaves Starmer in need of his 5th No 10 communications chief since election
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Tim Allan says he is leaving Downing Street ‘to allow new No 10 team to be built’
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Starmer’s communications chief Tim Allan quits No 10
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Emily Thornberry welcomes McSweeney’s resignation, saying it creates ‘opportunity’ for Starmer
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Labour MP Andy McDonald says it will be ‘end’ for Starmer if he does not ‘own the error he’s made’
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Badenoch says Starmer’s position now ‘untenable’
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Skills minister Jacqui Smith says she is sure Starmer won’t resign
Environment secretary Emma Reynolds has said the “whole Cabinet supports the prime minister”.
Speaking to GB News this evening, she added:
We have a united front here, and the meeting of the parliamentary Labour party, which I have just come from, there was a real sense of unity in that room behind Keir Starmer because we need this Labour government to face outwards, not inwards, not having fights with ourselves, but actually focusing on delivering the change that we have a five-year mandate to do.
Asked about Anas Sarwar’s calls for Starmer to step down, she said: “I think he is wrong, and I respectfully disagree with him.”
She went on to say that the prime minister received “several standing ovations” during today’s PLP meeting “because he is somebody with great integrity who deeply cares about the future of this country”.
Karl Turner, the Labour MP for Kingston upon Hull East, has said Keir Starmer shut down “any challenge against his leadership” during the parliamentary Labour party (PLP) meeting this evening.
Posting on X, Turner wrote: “PM was at his best tonight. Reflective. Apologetic. But strong.
“Came out fighting. Put to bed any idea of any challenge against his leadership.”
Turner added that it was clear the PLP expects to “see some changes”, explaining that it “needs to feel included and we must use all of the talents our PLP has to offer”.
Keir Starmer urged Labour MPs and peers to unite in the fight against Nigel Farage’s Reform UK during the PLP meeting.
He described the battle with Reform as the “fight of our lives, the fight of our times”.
Starmer added:
It goes to the heart and soul of who we are as a party, as a government, and as a country, what it is to be British… And if they ever get in, they will divide, divide, divide. And it will tear this beautiful country apart. That is the fight of our times.
Starmer told the packed committee room in the House of Commons that as long as he has “breath in my body, I’ll be in that fight, on behalf of the country that I love and I believe in, against those that want to tear it up”.
“That is my fight, that is all of our fight, and we’re in this together,” he added.
‘I’m not prepared to walk away from my mandate,’ Starmer says
Speaking during a meeting of the parliamentary Labour party, Keir Starmer told MPs and peers he is “not prepared to walk away” from his mandate as prime minister.
Starmer said:
I have won every fight I’ve ever been in.
I fought to change the Crown Prosecution Service so it better served victims of violence against women and girls. I fought to change the Labour Party to allow us to win an election again.
People told me I couldn’t do it. And then they gradually said, you might just get over the line.
We won with a landslide majority. Every fight I’ve been in, I have won.
Starmer went on to say he has had “detractors every step along the way, and I’ve got them now.
“Detractors that don’t want a Labour government at all, and certainly not one to succeed,” he added.
“But I’ll tell you this, after having fought so hard for the chance to change our country, I’m not prepared to walk away from my mandate and my responsibility to my country, or to plunge us into chaos, as others have done.”
Keir Starmer appeared “absolutely determined” during a meeting of the parliamentary Labour party (PLP), Downing Street sources said.
Starmer apologised for appointing Lord Peter Mandelson as UK ambassador to the US and paid tribute to his former chief of staff, Morgan McSweeney, during the meeting, insiders told the Press Association.
As a reminder, McSweeney stepped down yesterday after advising the prime minister to appoint Mandelson as US ambassador despite his known ties to Epstein.
Starmer also reportedly told MPs he wanted to give more weight to the PLP’s views, acknowledging he had not been “open or inclusive enough”, but added he was not prepared to walk away from his mandate or the country.
Chancellor Rachel Reeves has said Keir Starmer’s address to Labour MPs was “excellent” but admitted it had been a “very difficult” period after revelations about Peter Mandelson and Jeffrey Epstein’s ties emerged.
She said:
Everyone said, Keir is a man of great integrity and he is the person with a mandate to deliver the change that all of our constituents want to see.
The last few days have been very, very difficult for the country, most importantly for the victims of Epstein, difficult for the party.
Mistakes have been made but lessons will be learned.
The prime minister has reportedly left now after spending over an hour addressing the PLP and it seems like it’s gone well.
Sky News’s Beth Rigby posted on X: “One MP messages me to tell me PM ‘has gone for it and smashed it’ Says he ‘was honest and a bit raw’ but adds lots of MPs ‘desperately want him to succeed’.
And BBC New’s Harry Farley reports that one Labour MP, who is often critical of the prime minister, texted him from inside: “If we could bottle this Keir and show it to the country we’ll walk [the next general election].”
Culture secretary Lisa Nandy, who we hadn’t heard from when Andy rounded up cabinet members rallying around Keir Starmer earlier (see here and here), came out in support of the PM a few hours ago. She wrote on X:
We were elected just eighteen months ago to fundamentally change this country and improve lives after more than a decade of decline.
The Prime Minister is right to take that obligation seriously and he has my full support as he works in difficult circumstances to deliver.
She’s also told the BBC that she “strongly disagrees” with Anas Sarwar after the Scottish Labour leader called for Starmer’s resignation earlier today.
Nandy said Starmer had “made a mistake” in appointing Peter Mandelson as ambassador, which he is “right to have owned up to” and apologised for. She said the Epstein files have showed that the country is in desperate need of change, adding:
We will go out and do the job that we were elected to do … we are all fully behind the prime minister.
Wes Streeting says he has ‘nothing to hide’ over relationship with Mandelson and shares private text messages
Health secretary Wes Streeting has shared some of his private messages with Peter Mandelson with Sky News’s Beth Rigby in an effort to challenge allegations that he and the disgraced former US ambassador were close.
In an interview on the Electoral Dysfunction podcast (here’s a clip), Streeting said of the exchanges, which date back to August 2024 and cover a mix of personal and political matters:
Yeah, so this is the stuff that is going to be covered by the parliamentary inquiry. I’m happy for you to publish them. I’m happy for people to look at them and I’m happy to answer questions about them. I’ve got nothing to hide.
Streeting denied that his relationship with Mandelson was “intimate” and asked if he was embarrassed by the messages, which show that the pair spoke every few weeks, he said:
I’m embarrassed to have known Peter Mandelson.
The messages show that in March last year Streeting told Mandelson that he feared being “toast at the next election” in his Ilford North seat.
He also said that there was no “clear answer” as to why people should vote for Labour and after Mandelson complained about the government’s approach on the economy, Streeting said that the government had “no growth strategy at all”.
Also, in July Streeting asked Mandelson’s views on the UK formally recognising a Palestinian state. He said the UK should back recognition “morally and politically” and accused Israel of “committing war crimes before our very eyes”.
Mandelson also sent Streeting his statement after he was sacked by Keir Starmer, but Streeting didn’t reply.
Analysis: Sarwar has shown his ruthless streak, but will his swipe at Starmer mean anything to voters?
Severin Carrell
Anas Sarwar has shown he has a ruthless streak. Once one of Keir Starmer’s staunchest cheerleaders and allies, the Scottish Labour leader is now the most senior party figure to call for him to quit.
Despite anger among his colleagues and criticism that his decision to demand Starmer stands down was “idiotic, immature and self-defeating”, Sarwar’s political calculation is blunt and uncompromising.
Sarwar and his advisers, having watched Scottish Labour’s polling figures plummet as the disarray inside the UK government deepened into chaos and then crisis, believe the risk of calling on Starmer to quit is justified.
Sarwar, by delivering a better result in Scotland at the 2024 general election – winning 35.3% of the vote compared with Labour’s 33.7% at UK level – managed to double his party’s support levels in a matter of months. That has now evaporated. Scottish Labour sits at 18% in the polls.
Scottish Labour’s leadership have been in crisis talks since the issue of Peter Mandelson’s ties to Jeffrey Epstein grew into a fully fledged scandal last week. But Sarwar’s call for Starmer to quit is freighted with risks.
If Starmer limps on in the lead-up to Scottish elections in May or Labour descends into civil war, Sarwar’s failure to deliver the coup de grace will be used by his opponents in a campaign to claim he is weak or, worse, ignored.
A successful outcome for Sarwar, such as it is, relies on Starmer quitting now. He needs Starmer to resign gracefully and with humility. And it would matter too who stands to replace him.
Sarwar’s allies may be gambling that a leadership contest will produce candidates that can rouse voters who have fled to Reform or the Greens to reconsider Labour, or at the very least, lance the boil they feel Starmer’s premiership has become.
However, voters may see this ruthlessness as the kind of betrayal they dislike in politicians; if they already felt let down by Labour, they may be utterly indifferent. It may simply be too late and too self-destructive.
Read Severin’s full analysis here:
Ben Quinn
The former head of Homes England has announced he is joining Reform UK, as Nigel Farage said he was planning to bring more “experts” on board to advise the party.
The move by Simon Dudley was also being framed as a blow for Kemi Badenoch after he had been brought into the Conservative party’s treasurers department as recently as October last year by party chairman Kevin Hollinrake.
Dudley, who comes with experience in international banking and held roles at HSBC and other companies, was chair of the Ebsfleet Development Corporation until July last year, overseeing the creation of a new town the size of Chichester.
“For too long, the two main parties have failed to deliver housing for Brits,” said Dudley. “They’ve pursued a disastrous combination of extreme levels of immigration with a severe lack of new good quality homes.”
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