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Starmer insists he won’t quit as PM, as former minister Catherine West seeks to trigger Labour leadership contest
Good morning. There were many predictions for Labour’s future ahead of the English, Scottish and Welsh elections, which have been terrible for the party, but there is one outcome foreseen by no one: a leadership challenge by Catherine West.
West, MP for Hornsey and Friern Barnet and a junior Foreign Office minister until she was sacked in the reshuffle last year, announced yesterday afternoon that, unless a cabinet minister comes forward to challenge Starmer for the Labour leadership by tomorrow morning, she will do it herself. She would need the support of 81 Labour MPs to trigger a contest; there is no evidence that she has those numbers and (for reasons that are probably a mystery to anyone under the age of 50 – more on that later) she is being described as a stalking horse.
While there may not be 81 Labour MPs who want to see West as party leader, there probably are many more than 81 who want to see Starmer replaced as leader befor the next election. Almost 40, by one count, have been going public since the elections on Thursday saying as much. But, in their comments, mostly they have been adopting the same line as St Augustine took on chastity; ‘Lord, give me a Labour leadership contest, but not yet.’
Why? Some of them have been saying Starmer should be given a chance to show that he can turn things round. But mostly the Labour MPs speaking out are on the soft left of the party and believe Andy Burnham would be the best replacement. They want a commitment from Starmer that he will stand down in the medium term, so that Burnham has time to get elected to parliament first so he can stand as a candidate.
West is trying to speed up the process. This is seen as fatal to Burnham and potentially helpful to Wes Streeting, the health secretary, and Angela Rayner, the former deputy PM, who would probably be the lead candidates in a contest held now. West has dismissed suggestion that she is acting on behalf of someone else. Yesterday she said there was “plenty of talent” in the shadow cabinet capable of providing leadership. Since Thursday, Rayner has not yet commented on the election defeats; Streeting has said he supports Starmer.
The prospect of an early contest explains why some Labour MPs on the soft left are now reviving talk of trying to get Ed Miliband to stand. Here is our story by Peter Walker and Jessica Elgot.
Starmer insists he will not give up without a fight. He has given an interview to the Observer and he told the paper that he was engaged in a “10-year project of renewal” and that his intention was to lead the party into the next general election and serve a full second term.
He said:
I’m not going to walk away from the job I was elected to do in July 2024. I’m not going to plunge the country into chaos.
Here is the agenda for the day.
8.30am: Bridget Phillipson, the education secretary, is interviewed on Sunday Morning with Trevor Phillips on Sky News. The other guests are: Richard Tice, the Reform UK deputy leader; Rhun ap Iorwerth, the Plaid Cymru leader set to become the next first minister of Wales; James Cleverly, the shadow housing secretary; and Stephen Flynn, who is stepping down as SNP leader at Westminster having been elected to the Scottish parliament.
9.30am: Catherine West, the former Labour minister, is interviewed on the BBC’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg. Phillipson, Tice, ap Iorwerth and Cleverly on on too.
1pm: A rally against antisemitism is happening outside Downing Street organised in support of Britain’s Jewish community.
If you want to contact me, please post a message below the line when comments are open (from 9am today, until about lunchtime), or message me on social media. I can’t read all the messages BTL, but if you put “Andrew” in a message aimed at me, I am more likely to see it because I search for posts containing that word.
If you want to flag something up urgently, it is best to use social media. You can reach me on Bluesky at @andrewsparrowgdn.bsky.social. The Guardian has given up posting from its official accounts on X, but individual Guardian journalists are there, I still have my account, and if you message me there at @AndrewSparrow, I will see it and respond if necessary.
I find it very helpful when readers point out mistakes, even minor typos. No error is too small to correct. And I find your questions very interesting too. I can’t promise to reply to them all, but I will try to reply to as many as I can, either BTL or sometimes in the blog.
Key events
At the end of the interview Trevor Phillips asked Phillipson if she thought Starmer would lead the party into the next election, and if she wanted him to.
Phillipson replied: “Yes on both counts.”
In the panel discussion in the studio after, the journalists Anne McElvoy from Politico and Patrick Maguire from the Times both said they thought Phillipson did not show 100% enthusiasm as she answered the question in the way she did.
Q: Angela Rayner says that Shabana Mahmood’s plan to extend the amount of time immigrants have to wait until they can apply for indefinite leave to remain. Will those plans change?
Phillipson said that was subject to consultation.
But it is right that we take action on immigration. It is also right that we demonstrate to the public that not only can we control the borders, we control who lives in our country.
Trevor Phillips told Phillipson that Harriet Harman and Gordon Brown were serious people, and friends of his. But he mocked the idea that people who did not vote Labour last Thursday might have changed their mind if they had known Harman and Brown were getting appointments as government envoys.
Phillipson said that Harman and Brown were “tremendously talented people” who had “a lot to offer”.
Q: Starmer on Friday talked about Labour having made mistakes. But he did not say what they were. What have been the party’s biggest mistakes?
Phillipson said there had been a few. One of the biggest was cutting winter fuel payments for most pensions, she said.
Another problem was being “too gloomy and too negative”. She explained:
Early on people knew the country was in a mess. They didn’t need us to remind us to to remind them in such detail that the country was in a mess.
Labour losing support because people don’t think it has delivered change they were promised, Phillipson says
Asked if she had a message for Labour MPs asked to support West’s leadership challenge, Phillipson said:
What I heard [from voters during the election] was not a desire for a leadership contest, for the Labour party to spend more time talking amongst ourselves. What I heard loud and clear from voters was their deep sense of frustration that they’d voted for change in 2024. They were hopeful that that change would be delivered, and they don’t feel that we as a party, or we as a Labour government, have delivered what they wanted.
West not likely to get backing she needs to launch leadership challenge, Phillipson says
Asked what would happen if Catherine West is able to get all the signatures she needs to launch a leadership challenge, Phillipson replied: “I don’t think that will happen.”
But she said that was not the point, because the party did need to respond to the election results.
Catherine West’s call for leadership contest ‘completely wrong’, says Bridget Phillipson
Bridget Phillipson, the education secretary, is speaking on Sky’s Sunday with Trevor Phillips.
Asked about Catherine West’s leadership challenge, she says:
Catherine is a great colleague, and I’ve known her a long time. And I have real respect for Catherine.
On this one, I do part company with her. I think she’s got this completely wrong.
She says Labour got a “real kicking” from voters.
But she says she does not think a leadership contest is the answer.
I don’t think … a leadership contest and all of the problems that that would bring is the answer.
Starmer insists he won’t quit as PM, as former minister Catherine West seeks to trigger Labour leadership contest
Good morning. There were many predictions for Labour’s future ahead of the English, Scottish and Welsh elections, which have been terrible for the party, but there is one outcome foreseen by no one: a leadership challenge by Catherine West.
West, MP for Hornsey and Friern Barnet and a junior Foreign Office minister until she was sacked in the reshuffle last year, announced yesterday afternoon that, unless a cabinet minister comes forward to challenge Starmer for the Labour leadership by tomorrow morning, she will do it herself. She would need the support of 81 Labour MPs to trigger a contest; there is no evidence that she has those numbers and (for reasons that are probably a mystery to anyone under the age of 50 – more on that later) she is being described as a stalking horse.
While there may not be 81 Labour MPs who want to see West as party leader, there probably are many more than 81 who want to see Starmer replaced as leader befor the next election. Almost 40, by one count, have been going public since the elections on Thursday saying as much. But, in their comments, mostly they have been adopting the same line as St Augustine took on chastity; ‘Lord, give me a Labour leadership contest, but not yet.’
Why? Some of them have been saying Starmer should be given a chance to show that he can turn things round. But mostly the Labour MPs speaking out are on the soft left of the party and believe Andy Burnham would be the best replacement. They want a commitment from Starmer that he will stand down in the medium term, so that Burnham has time to get elected to parliament first so he can stand as a candidate.
West is trying to speed up the process. This is seen as fatal to Burnham and potentially helpful to Wes Streeting, the health secretary, and Angela Rayner, the former deputy PM, who would probably be the lead candidates in a contest held now. West has dismissed suggestion that she is acting on behalf of someone else. Yesterday she said there was “plenty of talent” in the shadow cabinet capable of providing leadership. Since Thursday, Rayner has not yet commented on the election defeats; Streeting has said he supports Starmer.
The prospect of an early contest explains why some Labour MPs on the soft left are now reviving talk of trying to get Ed Miliband to stand. Here is our story by Peter Walker and Jessica Elgot.
Starmer insists he will not give up without a fight. He has given an interview to the Observer and he told the paper that he was engaged in a “10-year project of renewal” and that his intention was to lead the party into the next general election and serve a full second term.
He said:
I’m not going to walk away from the job I was elected to do in July 2024. I’m not going to plunge the country into chaos.
Here is the agenda for the day.
8.30am: Bridget Phillipson, the education secretary, is interviewed on Sunday Morning with Trevor Phillips on Sky News. The other guests are: Richard Tice, the Reform UK deputy leader; Rhun ap Iorwerth, the Plaid Cymru leader set to become the next first minister of Wales; James Cleverly, the shadow housing secretary; and Stephen Flynn, who is stepping down as SNP leader at Westminster having been elected to the Scottish parliament.
9.30am: Catherine West, the former Labour minister, is interviewed on the BBC’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg. Phillipson, Tice, ap Iorwerth and Cleverly on on too.
1pm: A rally against antisemitism is happening outside Downing Street organised in support of Britain’s Jewish community.
If you want to contact me, please post a message below the line when comments are open (from 9am today, until about lunchtime), or message me on social media. I can’t read all the messages BTL, but if you put “Andrew” in a message aimed at me, I am more likely to see it because I search for posts containing that word.
If you want to flag something up urgently, it is best to use social media. You can reach me on Bluesky at @andrewsparrowgdn.bsky.social. The Guardian has given up posting from its official accounts on X, but individual Guardian journalists are there, I still have my account, and if you message me there at @AndrewSparrow, I will see it and respond if necessary.
I find it very helpful when readers point out mistakes, even minor typos. No error is too small to correct. And I find your questions very interesting too. I can’t promise to reply to them all, but I will try to reply to as many as I can, either BTL or sometimes in the blog.
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