Labour backlash over PM’s election catastrophe grows : RECAP

Bell Ribeiro-Addy MP, the Labour MP for Clapham and Brixton, has said ‘change cannot come soon enough’ after her party received a thrashing in the most recent local elections.

While congratulating all the Lambeth Labour candidates who were elected, she described the recent set of results as a ‘disaster for our party on both a local and national level’.

The government’s current strategy is holding the door open for a Reform government and electoral oblivion in Labour heartlands up and down the country.

Change cannot come soon enough”

Her recent statement came just minutes after fellow Labour MP, Catherine West called on cabinet members to challenge Sir Keir’s leadership.

Catherine West, the Labour MP for Hornsey and Friern Barnet, said if cabinet ministers do not challenge Sir Keir as party leader by Monday, she will throw down the gauntlet for the party’s top role.

She told BBC Radio 4 that while she would prefer for cabinet to ‘reorganise themselves’ and replace the Prime Minister with their ‘best communicator’.

However, West has put cabinet ministers ‘on notice’, saying she would ask for her peers’ support to trigger a leadership contest if it is not done by Monday.

For a leadership contest to be triggered, 20 per cent of the party’s MPs, would have to back a single contender.

West has insisted she has ten colleagues ready to support her bid for leadership.

She said:

My preferred option is for the cabinet to do a reshuffle within itself, where there’s plenty of talent, and for Keir to be given a different role, which he might enjoy, perhaps an international role.

Then for others to come to the fore who can communicate the message, who are very able, so we can have minimum fuss.”

By Mark Hookham

Police are probing reports of ‘family voting’ in the elections as a whistleblower claimed the illegal practice was rife.

The criminal offence often involves a man going to a polling booth with his wife or relative and telling them how to vote.

A local government source revealed that Manchester City Council had received 50 reports of the practice taking place.

‘These were the ones that polling staff could clearly see,’ they added.

The council said it didn’t recognise the 50 statistic. But a spokesman for its returning officer said ‘preventative and corrective action was taken in a number of cases’.

He added: ‘Details of a very small number of incidents, in which potential offences may have been committed, are being shared with Greater Manchester Police to determine whether any follow-up action is required.’

Police are also looking into a report of family voting in neighbouring Tameside.

In February, independent organisation Democracy Volunteers said it had witnessed ‘concerningly high levels’ of family voting during the Gorton and Denton by-election in Greater Manchester, with up to one in eight votes affected.

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The Cabinet should unite around a candidate to replace Sir Keir Starmer to take the fight to Nigel Farage and Reform UK, Labour MP Catherine West has said.

The MP, who has vowed to launch a leadership campaign unless Sir Keir is ousted by his Cabinet, also suggested Andy Burnham should be given a seat in the Lords.

The MP for Hornsey and Friern Barnet explained the ‘electoral crisis’ Labour now faces and her plans for change.

Ms West said that on Sunday and Monday, she will be ‘doing some more challenging’.

She said:

I am doing some more challenging the current way that we’re approaching this crisis, and I hope that this will bring forward either a bit more fight on the current leader, or some leadership hopefuls, who will come forward and say, we’ve been challenged and this is our plan, to bring forward a change, and bring forward a change in the country, and bring forward renewed respect.

I haven’t heard what we’re going to do differently or how that’s going to be different.

And that’s why I want to try and shake up the party so that they can respond to what was an awful election result on Thursday.”

Ms West explained that she believes Reform UK’s success in the local elections is partly down to how they have taken over ‘a traditional role of the Labour Party’.

The only way of beating Reform is for the Labour Party to get itself organised, better funded, we need to do more fundraising, because Nigel Farage clearly has people who will just give him £5 million.

We need to understand where that money came from, we need to understand how they operate.

And also, we need to look at their methods of communication, because they clearly were able to communicate with working people, which is a traditional role of the Labour Party.”

By Gabriel Milliard-Clothier

Ten Labour MPs are ready to defect to Zack Polanski’s party despite its disappointing performance in the local elections, say senior Green sources.

The plot would plunge Keir Starmer’s leadership into further chaos as he fights to save his job after Labour’s poor showing.

Backbench MPs on Labour’s Left have been holding ‘informal discussions for months’ about ‘working together’ with the Greens, the sources in the party say.

‘Nine or ten Labour MPs are very chatty and in play,’ they added.

The MPs have become increasingly ‘jumpy’ as support haemorrhages to the Left of the party and insiders predict one could ‘go over the top any minute now’.

The plotters, most of whom were elected before 2024, were close to Jeremy Corbyn when he was Labour’s leader.

Several senior figures from that era have recently defected to the Greens.

Backbenchers, who were already thinking about jumping ship, have been spooked by Green gains in Labour strongholds such as Hackney, Lewisham and Islington in London.

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Sir Keir Starmer has put measures to tackle the cost of living and forge closer ties with the European Union at the heart of his plan to revive Labour’s fortunes after a disastrous set of elections.

The Prime Minister is battling to save his job, with a Labour MP plotting to launch a leadership challenge on Monday in the hope of spurring his Cabinet to move to oust him.

But despite mounting pressure to quit, Sir Keir insisted he would lead Labour into the next general election to continue with his 10-year project of “national renewal”.

The Prime Minister will use an address on Monday and the King’s Speech on Wednesday to mount a fightback after growing numbers of Labour MPs demanded a change at the top of the party.

In a Mirror interview, Sir Keir promised to be ‘full-throated’ about the need for closer ties with Brussels as he sought to win back his wavering MPs and address the drift of voters from Labour to the Greens in many former strongholds in London and cities across England.

In an apparent attempt to address the concerns of voters who felt left behind, Sir Keir promised ‘an economy that really works for everyone, wherever they live’.

The Mirror reported that No 10 and the Treasury are drawing up support for families, targeting fuel costs and household bills which have soared since the Iran war pushed up global oil and gas prices.

Scrapping September’s planned increase in fuel duty is understood to be an option on the table, the newspaper reported.

Sir Keir promised action to address the economic impact of the war, saying: ‘I know this causes anxiety for families, and I won’t stand by.’

He said that he would be responding with a plan ‘about the hope and opportunity of a better future, part of which is a stronger economy and an economy that really works for everyone, wherever they live, whatever they do’.

‘There are a number of strands to that, but one is, we have to be closer to Europe, and I just want to be full-throated about this.’

A youth experience scheme, allowing young EU and British citizens to work and study in each others’ countries, is expected to be agreed this summer and implemented by 2027.

Sir Keir said:

I feel that Brexit has held back our young people. They should be free to work, study, travel in European countries, just as I was able to when I was growing up.

That has been smashed away from young people because of Brexit. I’m not going to let Brexit stand in the way of their opportunities, and therefore we’ll push forward on that.”

Labour MP Catherine West declined to answer outright who she believed should be the next Labour leader.

She said:

That is a question for the Cabinet to begin with, to see whether they can put someone forward, who they can all get behind, then we wouldn’t need a leadership election.

And then the next step is people will put themselves forward and I know that if I get the names requisite to stand myself, that will spark other leadership contenders and then we will end up with somebody emerging.

There are some excellent people, but they do need to have the courage to stand up and say why they should be the next leader to take us forward into the most, I think, the most decisive general election that we’ve known.”

By Caroline Peacock

Former Gogglebox star Josh Tapper has been elected as a Labour Councillor.

Josh first appeared on the Channel 4 show in 2013 at just 15 years old, alongside his parents and sister Amy during the programme’s debut series.

He left Gogglebox in 2017 after securing a Civil Service apprenticeship, later moving into politics.

On Friday, he successfully won a seat in local government after being elected as a Labour councillor for the Underhill ward in the London Borough of Barnet.

Josh received 1,128 votes, winning the seat alongside fellow Labour candidate Zahra Beg in the 2026 local elections.

His sister Amy took to her Instagram Stories to congratulate her brother, sharing a beaming snap of him, writing: ‘My brother is officially a Councillor! So so proud.’

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Labour Party chiefs have warned Catherine West against her challenge to Sir Keir Starmer.

She said:

The Party leadership has asked me, obviously, not to do this and (said) everything is in hand.

But I’m not convinced. I think we need to have a strong statement from the Prime Minister, either that he feels he’s not the person to take us forward, or he is, and he’s fighting for us.

That is what we need to know. And I think that’s what they just want to hear. After their verdict, which they gave us, as Labour representatives on Thursday, we need a much stronger response from the Government.”

Labour has successfully defended a higher percentage of its seats in the capital than it did in the rest of England.

Meanwhile, Reform UK won a lower proportion of seats it contested than elsewhere, according to Press Association analysis.

Labour won just 67 per cent of the council seats in London, it held just before the elections took place.

This compares with a win rate of 30% for seats the party was defending outside London.

Reform won just 5 per cent of the seats in London in which it fielded candidates, compared with 43 per cent of the seats it contested elsewhere in England.

The Greens won 19 per cent of seats in London, where it stood candidates, higher than the 10 per cent it managed outside the capital.

The Conservatives won 46 per cent of seats they were defending outside London, while, by contrast, the party has seen a net increase of 6 per cent in its number of councillors in the capital.

Sir Keir has vowed to lead Labour to the next general election amid the possibility of a leadership challenge after his party was thrashed in the recent local elections.

When asked by The Sunday Mirror if he would lead Labour to the next election, he said:

Yes I will, and I’ve always said it’s a decade of national renewal, where the legacy we inherited was an appalling legacy on all fronts, not just the economy, which was broken.”

He said his plan and hope for a better future would be ‘really clear’.

‘…part of which is a stronger economy and an economy that really works for everyone, wherever they live, whatever they do.

There are a number of strands to that, but one is, we have to be closer to Europe, and I just want to be full throated about this.

I feel that Brexit has held back our young people. They should be free to work, study, travel in European countries, just as I was able to when I was growing up.

That has been smashed away from young people because of Brexit. I’m not going to let Brexit stand in the way of their opportunities, and therefore we’ll push forward on that.”