Union leaders are piling in on Sir Keir Starmer as a Labour mutiny gathers pace after this week’s local elections disaster.
The Prime Minister today vowed to stay in his role for another eight years, insisting he is at the beginning of a ’10-year-project of renewal’.
In a desperate bid to save his premiership he wheeled out Labour veterans Gordon Brown and Harriet Harman back into government yesterday.
But the move has failed to quell the ire of union leaders who have accused Labour of being ‘disconnected from the working classes’.
Sharon Graham, the general secretary of Unite, this morning joined calls for Sir Keir to set out a timetable for his departure.
It follows a threat from backbencher Catherine West to launch a ‘stalking horse’ leadership bid – with No10 nervous anger is so great she could get the 81 nominations required to spark a vote.
Rayner: Starmer must set out the change country needs
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
ANOTHER union chief accuses Labour of ‘disconnecting from working class people’
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.
SNP leader John Swinney’s call for another independence referendum following last week’s Holyrood election has been rejected by the UK Government.
Labour ministers said yesterday that their position ‘remains exactly the same’ and that they will not support another vote on Scotland’s place in the UK.
The UK Government urged the SNP to focus on ‘delivery, not division’ and on efforts to boost the economy and tackle the cost of living crisis.
It follows Mr Swinney’s claim that he had secured a ‘pro-independence mandate’ despite falling short of the SNP majority which he previously said was needed to force another referendum.
Read more about the fall-out following a momentous election in Scotland:
Many at Westminster expect Sir Keir’s fate to be sealed as early as tomorrow, with a ‘stalking horse’ challenger surfacing and anger mounting among MPs.
But Ms Rayner – who is still wrangling with HM Revenue & Customs over unpaid stamp duty – and Mr Burnham, not currently an MP, both have an interest in delaying the denouement.
The pair were caught holding a secret summit at her house in Greater Manchester last month, with speculation they were mulling a ‘dream ticket’.
Read more analysis of the Labour power struggle here:
No need to rip up and start again, argues MP
Speaking to Sky News this evening, Labour MP Perran Moon urged those battling to become the next leader of the party to instead ‘knuckle down and focus on the job of dealing with the cost of living’.
He offered his ‘100 per cent backing’ to Sir Keir Starmer and said the Prime Minister demonstrated ‘real leadership’ by keeping Britain out of the Iran War.
Mr Moon added: ‘We need somebody who is strong and is really focussed on those the impacts of that international situation, and that is Keir Starmer.’
How many of Starmer’s MPs are demanding his resignation?
Pressure has been mounting on the Prime Minister for months now, following a string of U-turns and a scandal surrounding Lord Mandelson’s appointment as US ambassador that just will not go away.
The calls for Sir Keir to resign have only grown louder amid the fall-out from a disastrous set of local elections which went about as bad as could have been expected.
And yet, few of Starmer’s MPs have actually called on him to quit – just 32 in fact.
Most notably, former minister Catherine West said that if the PM does not stand down, she’ll launch a leadership bid tomorrow.
Rayner: It needs to change – now
Angela Rayner concluded her epic two-part X post by seemingly backing Sir Keir, but urging an immediate change in approach.
She wrote:
The Prime Minister must now meet the moment and set out the change our country needs.
Change our economic agenda to prioritise making people better off, change how we run our party so that all voices are listened to, and change how we do politics.
Labour exists to make working people better off. That is not happening fast enough, and it needs to change — now.
Blocking Burnham was a mistake, Rayner claims
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.
Ange’s swipe at Reform
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.
Rayner’s manifesto – higher wages and a ‘building boom’
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’.
Rayner criticises Government U-turns and scandals
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.
Stand up for working people, urges Rayner
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.
