UK prime minister Keir Starmer was engaged in a desperate rearguard action to save his premiership on Monday night, following an extraordinary day in Westminster when one of his biggest allies turned on him.
Starmer, whose position is in peril over his disastrous appointment of Peter Mandelson as US ambassador, met Labour MPs in a room off the House of Commons’s famous committee corridor on Monday night to plead for their backing.
The meeting came hours after a co-ordinated round of public endorsements from his cabinet, who all backed him online with similar statements. Their intervention was arranged to counter a simultaneous announcement in Glasgow from Anas Sarwar, the leader of Scottish Labour and previously an ally of Starmer’s, who called on him to go.
“There have been too many mistakes,” said Sarwar, whose party faces defeat for the fifth time in a row in Holyrood parliamentary elections in May. He said he “had to do what is right for Scotland” as he blamed Starmer’s Downing Street “failures” for Labour’s electoral difficulties north of the border with England.
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Sarwar gave Starmer, whom he publicly backed as recently as last Thursday, advance warning that he intended to publicly call for his resignation. This gave Starmer’s depleted Downing Street operation, which was also been hit by resignations on Monday, time to muster the Cabinet fightback.
There were growing fears in the UK Labour government, however, that Eluned Morgan, the Labour first minister of Wales, could also withdraw her public support for Starmer in the days ahead. Polls suggest Labour also faces defeat in the May elections in Wales, where the party has dominated politics for the past century.
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In Ireland, a Government spokesman declined to comment on what he said was a matter for British politics.
But senior sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity, pointed to vastly improved Anglo-Irish relations since Starmer took power at Westminster in 2024.
After years of tension between London and Dublin as successive Tory governments wrestled with Brexit, Starmer established warm personal relations, first with then taoiseach Simon Harris and latterly with Micheál Martin.
Annual British-Irish summits have been re-established – the next is due in March in Cork – while co-operation across the two governments has been significantly restored. Sources suggested this was likely to survive any change in leadership in Downing Street.
However, Sinn Féin foreign affairs spokesman Donnchadh Ó Laoghaire said: “What we are seeing from this Labour government is dysfunction and this is not in Ireland’s interests, north or south.”
“We are approaching the 30th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement, and this presents the milestone opportunity to look forward and shape the future between Britain and Ireland. This includes the holding of unity referendums,” he said.
Up to 100 Labour MPs backed Starmer with public statements on Monday, including rumoured leadership rivals such as former deputy prime minister, Angela Rayner, and also health secretary Wes Streeting, who said people should “give Keir a chance”.
Despite the co-ordinated public backing, however, Starmer’s premiership was hanging by a thread as many of his colleagues criticised him in private.
“Wes has to say that [he backed Starmer] in public, obviously,” one Labour parliamentarian told The Irish Times.
In a sign of continuing tensions between Starmer and Streeting, who is seen as most likely to challenge him for the leadership, Streeting’s office accused Number 10 of briefing against him by suggesting he had co-ordinated with Sarwar, which he denied.
Kemi Badenoch, leader of the opposition Conservative Party, said Starmer had lost control of Labour. Nigel Farage, the leader of Reform UK which leads Labour in the polls, said he believed Starmer “would be gone within the month”.
Labour faces a crucial byelection in Greater Manchester on February 26th for which Starmer, if he survives as leader until then, will be blamed if Labour loses.
In a sign that he intends to fight on for now, however, Starmer addressed Labour MPs to ask them to continue to back him in the mandate he received from voters in the July 2024 election.
The public intervention of Rayner, who is believed to covet Starmer’s role but who needs time to deal with tax issues before she could contest any vacancy, was seen on Monday night as being crucial in helping Starmer to shore up his position with Labour MPs.
