MPs and unions break ranks to demand that Starmer resign

Labour MPs and union bosses broke ranks on Friday to demand Sir Keir Starmer’s resignation after his party’s worst local elections defeat in history.

MPs warned the Prime Minister that he could “end the Labour Party”, leaving it “slaughtered” and in a state of “total destruction” at the next general election if he did not stand down.

Critics lined up to call for a new leader after Sir Keir was blamed for Labour’s historic defeats across England, Scotland and Wales, losing councils that had never been run by another party and giving up control in Wales for the first time since devolution.

MPs said he should immediately announce an orderly timeline for his departure, allowing leadership challengers to set out their pitch this summer. They were followed by the leaders of Unison, the public services union, and TSSA, its transport equivalent, who called for the Prime Minister to quit.

On Friday evening, allies of Andy Burnham, the Mayor of Greater Manchester, broke cover to attack Sir Keir. They said there had been a “failed political experiment” at the top of the party.

Shortly afterwards, Sir Sadiq Khan, the Mayor of London, said that “the threat to Labour is existential” without major changes.

Labour lost hundreds of English council seats to Reform UK and saw the collapse of stronghold councils including Tameside, Blackburn, Gateshead and Sunderland, which fell to Nigel Farage’s party after 50 years of Labour rule.

Baroness Morgan of Ely, the Welsh First Minister, lost her seat in a disastrous performance for Labour at the Senedd that paved the way for an administration led by Plaid Cymru for the first time.

Labour’s share of the vote when it was projected at a nationwide level was only 15 per cent of voters – the party’s worst performance since the measure was introduced in 1979.

Sir Keir has resisted calls to resign, insisting he would not “walk away and plunge the country into chaos”, although he has not explicitly ruled out a managed transition to another leader.

On Friday morning, he faced the first demands from some of his fiercest critics on the Labour backbenches, who were later joined by moderate MPs including Louise Haigh, his former transport secretary. Ms Haigh said Sir Keir could not lead the party into the next election unless he delivered “significant and urgent change”.

Andrea Egan, the general secretary of Unison, Britain’s largest union and one of Labour’s biggest financial backers, warned that the party faced “oblivion” unless Sir Keir stepped down, calling for a change to “not just the leader but the entire approach”.

Sharon Graham, the boss of Unite the Union, said Sir Keir faced a choice to “change or die”, and warned that the results “could be the beginning of the end for the party itself”.

The leaders of all 11 Labour-affiliated unions met on Friday afternoon for crisis talks about how to respond to the election losses.

After the meeting, the unions demanded to meet Sir Keir to discuss the “catastrophic” results, calling for a “radical new direction” from Labour that would almost certainly amount to a swing to the Left.

Sources at two of the unions said they could endorse a candidate to replace Sir Keir within days, with discussion centred on Mr Burnham and Angela Rayner, the former deputy prime minister, noting that the race could move “very, very quickly”.

Government sources told The Telegraph that Mr Burnham was the only candidate who could unite Labour’s warring factions and deliver an election victory, but it is unclear whether Sir Keir would allow him to return to Westminster by standing in a by-election.

Mainstream, a pressure group that supports Mr Burnham, launched an attack on the Prime Minister, saying the local election results were “the terminus of a failed political experiment at the top of the Labour Party”.

“Today, it seems increasingly unlikely that our party’s current leadership will take us into the 2029 general election. If this is the case, then there must be an orderly transition and a genuinely open, democratic debate about both who and what comes next.”

Sir Sadiq said: “Without a change in course and an acceleration in delivery, the threat to Labour is existential. We risk a repeat in London, Wales and across England of what happened in Scotland, where we have still not recovered.”

Meanwhile, Cabinet ministers defied calls to launch a coup and force Sir Keir to stand down, despite private suggestions from Ed Miliband that the Prime Minister should announce a “timeline” to leave office.

Instead, some ministers declared that it was not the right time to change leader in what appeared to be a co-ordinated attempt by No 10 to shore up his immediate position.

The loyalists warned against “navel-gazing”, “turning in on ourselves” and being “blown off course” by leadership speculation, while David Lammy, Sir Keir’s deputy, cautioned against “changing the pilot during the flight”.

However, John McDonnell, the hard-Left former shadow chancellor, replied: “Sometimes you do if you’re in a nosedive.”

In a post on X on Friday night, Mr Miliband, the Energy Secretary, said: “Voters are making clear their anger at a broken economic and political status quo. As Keir has said, we must go further in delivering the mandate for change that Labour won in 2024 – and show how we will answer the call for change in our country”.

Wes Streeting, the Health Secretary, said Sir Keir would “have my support” in setting out how the Government would move forward.

He told reporters at the count for Redbridge council: “Keir Starmer will be setting out how he will do that as our leader and Prime Minister. He will have my support in doing that, and I’ll continue putting my shoulder to the wheel as the Health and Social Care Secretary, who’s getting the NHS back on its feet and making sure it’s fit for the future.”

A message from Lisa Nandy, the Culture Secretary, avoided any mention of a leadership challenge, arguing only that it was clear the public was “impatient for change”.

One source familiar with the Prime Minister’s thinking said there was “no sense whatsoever” that he would stand down. They argued that Labour’s losses showed there was no longer a route back to Parliament for Mr Burnham or support for a lurch to the Left.

“We have lost everything we could lose in the North and Midlands to Reform,” they said. “That means the entire policy prescription of Andy and Angela is pointless.”

Speculation about Sir Keir’s departure and a move to the Left did little to calm the financial markets, which were already in turmoil over the war in Iran and political instability.

Ian Lavery, a former party chairman, said Labour faced “utter annihilation” and warned that Sir Keir would face a leadership coup if he did not agree to stand aside.

“I’m among many others within the party [who think] that the party could cease to be in the immediate future,” he said.

Kim Johnson, another backbencher, pointed out that Lady Morgan had resigned because she had lost her seat and suggested that Sir Keir “take a leaf out of her book” and “take responsibility” for the results.

Phil Iley, the leader of Blackburn council, said it was “absolutely tragic” that councillors were losing their seats, and called for Sir Keir’s immediate resignation.

Richard Olszewski, the Labour leader of Camden council in Sir Keir’s constituency, lost his seat to the Green Party, which enjoyed gains across the capital and a victory in the Hackney mayoral race.

Zack Polanski, the party’s leader, declared that two-party politics was “dead”, echoing earlier comments by Mr Farage, the Reform leader, who told The Daily T that he had witnessed “an historic shift in British politics”.

The Green Party also unseated the Labour mayoral incumbent south-east London, before taking control of Norwich city council, which had previously been controlled by Labour.

A projection of the results on to Westminster constituencies showed Mr Farage would probably become prime minister if the parties’ vote share was replicated at a general election, although the split would produce a hung parliament.

Reform’s gains included unprecedented support in both the Red Wall areas of northern England and Tory heartlands in the south, including Essex, Suffolk and Norfolk.

The Conservative Party also experienced a disastrous set of results, having lost council seats for the second consecutive year while serving in opposition, which had not previously happened since at least 1975.

But the party did win back Westminster council and became the largest party in Wandsworth, representing a symbolic victory for Kemi Badenoch on an otherwise disappointing night.

In Scotland, Labour’s Anas Sarwar conceded defeat to the SNP after results from just seven out of 129 seats. He has previously called on Sir Keir to resign and blamed him for the collapse in support for Scottish Labour.

Dame Jackie Baillie, the deputy leader of the party, blamed Sir Keir for the result and said Scottish Labour was “drowned out by a national wave”.

The Liberal Democrats had made narrow gains overall by Friday evening, becoming the only party other than Reform UK to have won more seats than it lost.

[Source: Daily Telegraph]