It was a fortnight ago today that Keir Starmer announced “phase two” of his government. The aim was to banish the memory of his unhappy first year – which culminated in the welfare vote debacle – and project authority. Yet now, owing to a pattern of failures, Starmer finds his position questioned as never before.
Though the Prime Minister has a 1997-style majority, the mood is more reminiscent of Tony Blair’s fraught third term. The most committed Labour rebels are going public – not “up to the job”, says Clive Lewis; in the “last-chance saloon”, warns Graham Stringer – while others such as Rosena Allin-Khan and Helen Hayes declare that the May 2026 elections will be the decisive test of Starmer’s leadership. But what has spooked the centre is the number who now believe, as one minister put it to me, that it is “a matter of when rather than if” the Prime Minister departs (the new whips team was dispatched on Saturday afternoon to ring round MPs).
How vulnerable is Starmer? It’s worth stating that, unlike in the Conservative Party, there is no formal confidence vote mechanism (one reason why Labour leaders are so rarely brought down). Instead, a contest must be triggered with challengers nominated by 20 per cent of MPs (80). But that hurdle is no longer as formidable as it once appeared: the government was defeated by its own side over the welfare bill, and 116 MPs publicly defied No 10 to nominate Lucy Powell for the deputy leadership.
Here’s why Andy Burnham’s fresh leadership tilt – which I first identified back in June – is now being taken seriously. “He’s the most popular politician in the country, it’s quite an easy sell for him to the PLP,” a senior Labour source observes. “He’s never liked Keir who needs to take the threat extremely seriously.”
Cabinet ministers are publicly emphasising just how much Manchester needs the “King of the North” while one Starmer ally tells me that “talk about creating by-elections [for Burnham to re-enter the House of Commons] is a very odd thing to do at a challenging moment like this”. (Andrew Gwynne, the suspended Labour MP for Gorton and Denton, and Burnham’s former campaign manager, has denied that he will soon vacate his seat.) All sides are contemplating the shape of the next Labour leadership election: with Angela Rayner no longer the front-runner, MPs ask whether Wes Streeting could be persuaded to move early and, as I reported last week, even a comeback by Ed Miliband is deemed possible.
As the blame game over Peter Mandelson’s appointment as ambassador in Washington continues, speculation over Morgan McSweeney’s future also persists (MPs, incidentally, are struck by the number of briefings emphasising that Sue Gray was opposed to the appointment). “Morgan looks in a lot of danger, the question is whether Keir will turn on him,” one government source comments. “I could see him doing that but it would be signing his own death warrant.” That’s a conclusion many, across all wings of the party, draw about what has always been the Starmer-McSweeney project.
Inside No 10 the hope is that a succession of flagship events – Donald Trump’s state visit, Labour Party conference (the theme of which will be “renewal”) and the Budget – will provide ample opportunities to reset the narrative. The party, one Downing Street aide tells me, will confront Reform’s charge that “the country is in permanent decline” and take on the right’s resurgent “ethno-nationalism”. Starmer’s declaration yesterday that he would “never surrender” the flag to “those that use it as a symbol of violence, fear and division” reassured internal critics dismayed by Business Secretary Peter Kyle’s earlier refusal to condemn the “Unite the Kingdom” demonstration.
For Starmer, the months ahead are fraught with danger: an ambitious Burnham, an aggrieved Mandelson (who some MPs believe will enact Dominic Cummings-style revenge), an insurgent Reform and a fragile economy. The Prime Minister himself draws consolation from the knowledge that he has defied his critics before: in the aftermath of the 2021 Hartlepool by-election, when some were as dismissive of him as they now are of Kemi Badenoch. Starmer’s ability to persuade MPs he can replicate that recovery will determine his future.
This piece first appeared in the Morning Call newsletter; receive it every morning by subscribing on Substack here
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