Unions pile in on Starmer after election catastrophe: Live updates

Angela Rayner has just issued a lengthy statement on X.

She called for Labour to direct its focus from the ‘well-off’ to ‘working people’, adding:

The Prime Minister must now meet the moment and set out the change our country needs

Following Unite chief Sharon Graham’s scathing attack on Keir Starmer this morning, Dave Ward – the general secretary of the Communication Workers Union (CWU) – has now also come out against the Labour premier.

Speaking to delegates at the party’s conference in Bournemouth, he said:

There’s nobody in this room who doesn’t understand that that wasn’t down to the work of Labour councillors out on the ground.

That was down to the simple fact and truth that Labour has completely and utterly misread a lot of the situations that it faces and it has disconnected from working-class people.

Labour MP Josh Simons has added his name to a growing list of disillusioned party representatives calling on Sir Keir Starmer to go.

Formerly considered a Starmer loyalist, Mr Simons is a previous director of the Labour Together think tank, which was important to Sir Keir’s rise to power.

Sharing his article for The Times to social media, Mr Simons admitted the piece was ‘not easy to write’.

But in a rallying call, he added, ‘We Labour MPs must square up to the truth. These elections were not a normal mid-term drubbing, they were an unequivocal judgement that our actions do not meet the moment.’

He wrote in The Times:

Putting the people I represent and the country I love first, I do not believe the prime minister can rise to this moment.

He has lost the country. He should take control of the situation by overseeing an orderly transition to a new prime minister.

This is bigger than personalities, but it is time to acknowledge that blocking Andy Burnham was a mistake.

We must show we understand the scale of change the moment calls for – that means bringing our best players into Parliament.

Angela Rayner also used her lengthy statement to propose further nationalisation of public services, branding Thames Water ‘an iconic failure of privatisation’.

In the wake of a triumphant night for Reform UK at the local elections, the MP offered a swipe at its leader Nigel Farage over a £5million gift he received from a crypto billionaire shortly before the last general election.

Mr Farage insists he was not required to declare the donation.

In her stunning post-election statement – issued just a day before Keir Starmer’s awaited address on Monday – former Deputy Prime Minister Rayner set out a manifesto of sorts to cure Britain’s ills.

She praised her own Employment Rights Act and urged a Fair Pay Agreement as well as an increase in the minimum wage.

Rayner also put in a good word for the Government’s recently passed Renters’ Rights Bill, but also backed a ‘building boom that benefits British business and workers’.

We are in danger of becoming a party of the well-off, not working people.

The Peter Mandelson scandal showed a toxic culture of cronyism. 

Decisions like cutting winter fuel allowance just weren’t what people expected from a Labour government.

For too long, successive governments have allowed wealth and power to concentrate at the top without a plan to ensure the benefits of economic growth are shared fairly. The result is an economy that does not work for the majority, with wealth concentrated in too few hands.

This level of inequality, alongside squeezed living standards, is the outcome of a model built on deregulation, privatisation, and trickle-down economics.

The MP for Ashton-under-Lyne then laid out her prescription to save the party – a renewed focus on improving living standards to stop those struggling with the cost-of-living crisis handing their vote to Reform or the Greens.

She added:

The Labour Party must now live up to our name: we must be the party of working people.

We’ve heard the same on the doorstep as we’ve seen in the polls – the cost of living is the top issue for voters of all parties. People have turned to populists and nationalists because we have not done enough to fix it.

Living standards are barely higher than they were a decade and a half ago. People feel hopeless – that the cost of living crisis will never end, and now they see oil and gas companies use global instability to post record profits.

Once again, ordinary people are paying the price for decisions they didn’t make. It’s no wonder that across the UK, working people feel the system is rigged against them.

Rayner – who is rumoured to be gearing up for a Labour leadership shot – kicked off her 1,000-word statement bemoaning the party’s monumental losses at Thursday’s local election.

She said:

Our party has suffered a historic defeat.

Many good Labour colleagues have lost their seats despite working hard for those they represented. We have lost good Labour administrations and lost the chance for more.

What we are doing isn’t working, and it needs to change. This may be our last chance.

What we are doing isn’t working, and it needs to change. This may be our last chance.

If Catherine West wishes to press ahead with a labour leadership bid her first step will be notifying the National Executive Committee (NEC) about the challenge.

At this point, the clock will begin ticking – allowing a limited amount of time to gather signatures of 20 per cent of the parliamentary party (currently 81 MPs).

The names of all those backing the challenge will be publicly visible on the Labour Party website.

Next up, the support of EITHER five per cent of Constituency Labour Parties OR at least three Labour affiliates (of which two should be trade unions) is required.

And lastly, the backing of Labour Party members (who have been fully paid for up to six months or more) is required.

Voting will take place by preferential ballot – which means if no candidate gets over 50 per cent of the vote then the candidate with least votes is eliminated.

The votes are then reallocated until a candidate receives a majority.

In her Mail On Sunday column, Sarah Vine argues the local election results have signalled one resounding message: sort out illegal immigration or face political oblivion.

‘Whatever else may divide us – age, wealth, social class, race and even religion – it seems the one thing the Brits are broadly in agreement about is the need to get a handle on illegal immigration,’ she says.

You can read her column in full here: