Nadia Whittome has become the second Labour MP to publicly call for Keir Starmer to go as Prime Minister (following Clive Lewis). Some others have come close to the line, with Richard Burgon telling my colleague Megan Kenyon in an interview this week that the PM only has until the May elections to turn things around.
Speaking on a podcast with Ali Milani, the political commentator and former Labour parliamentary candidate, Whittome said: “I think there does have to be a new leader. I mean, even if Keir Starmer had a radical change of direction, I don’t think people would believe him and I don’t think the people around him would allow that to happen. So I think there needs to be a change of leadership, a change of personnel of people in No 10 and a completely different direction for the party.”
What does it all mean? On the one hand we have reached a political turning point in which MPs feel emboldened to call for the resignation of a leader who was until recently unassailable. Consistently dreadful polling and a series of messy mishaps from No 10 have helped to create this situation.
On the other hand it is worth remembering that there are 405 Labour MPs, the vast majority of whom have not said this. Plus, those who have come out against Starmer are longstanding critics of this Labour leadership. They are kicking Starmer while he is down.
Nevertheless there is a larger and more politically varied group of Labour MPs who are now speaking freely in private and to journalists about a new prime minister.
In conversations with MPs, I am increasingly noticing how they are thinking about the fates of Starmer and the Labour Party as separate categories. It seems the reputation of the PM, now the most unpopular holder of the office on record, is beyond saving, while the brand of the party might still be salvageable. As the logic goes, that salvaging operation could only happen under a new Prime Minister.
The other important person with something public to say about this question is Rachel Reeves, who has directly addressed speculation about the party leadership in a new interview with the Financial Times. Addressing the bleak economic and political outlook for the Government she said: “A different leader or a different chancellor is not going to change that reality”.
And if you believe Starmer’s aides, who have briefed that a “reckless” leadership challenge would destabilise the markets, change would make things much worse.
[Further reading: Why I’m defecting to the Greens: former Labour MP Lloyd Russell-Moyle]
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