Former minister Catherine West has announced that she will challenge Keir Starmer for the leadership of the Labour Party if he is not removed from office by the cabinet imminently.
West gave a deadline of Monday for the cabinet to collectively force the Prime Minister to step down, otherwise she said she would begin the process of a leadership contest.
She told the BBC she currently has ten MPs signed up to support her, significantly below the 81 names required to trigger a contest under Labour’s rule book, which requires 20 per cent of the PLP to start the process of a leadership election. Now that her intentions are clear, that number could increase quickly.
West served as a minister in the Foreign Office until she was sacked by the Prime Minister in September last year. She is identified with the soft left of the party and supported the leadership of Jeremy Corbyn.
The declaration will widely be interpreted as a “stalking horse” move to identify the level of discontent in the party and the appetite for a challenge before a more senior, plausible figure for the leadership emerges.
If West were to garner 81 signatures and trigger a contest, other MPs and even ministers could also then put themselves forward to participate in any contest.
West told BBC News that she had decided on this course of action because of her surprise that no senior figures had yet challenged Starmer in response to Thursday’s election results. She said she was “confident” she could get enough support to trigger a full contest.
[Further reading: All eyes on Angela Rayner]
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