When Labour’s Scottish leader, Anas Sarwar, urged Keir Starmer to stand down two weeks ago, the prime minister’s closest advisers presented him with a choice: fight, flight or hand over his destiny to his party by calling a leadership contest.
The prime minister chose the first option and his Downing Street team sprung into action to contain the threat. At the moment of greatest peril for Starmer, MPs peered over the precipice and didn’t like what they saw.
In the fortnight since, not much has changed. Even with Labour’s humiliating defeat in the Gorton and Denton byelection, where it was pushed into third place behind the Greens and Reform UK, the uneasy truce has persisted.
“It’s not working but I don’t see what the alternative is,” one cabinet minister told the Guardian. A senior party figure described MPs as “dejected, doomful but not mutinous”. A Labour MP characterised the situation as “stalemate – for now”.
Starmer’s allies are determined to make the most of what is likely to be a brief hiatus. “Keir is stronger for MPs having stepped back from the abyss. They know a contest would unleash more chaos and their constituents would hate it,” one said.
They believe he has time to prove his detractors wrong – first with the spring statement on Tuesday, which they indicate will confirm a brighter economic outlook, and then with cost of living measures coming into effect in April. “People will start to feel the difference,” they said.
Starmer wrote to his MPs after the Gorton result to tell them he “gets it” that people are impatient to see the change they voted for in 2024. He also insisted he would lead Labour into the next general election and win it, despite the party trailing in the polls.
But even his closest aides acknowledge that the aftermath of the May elections will be a crunch point and he is likely to face a leadership challenge then unless he reassures anxious MPs, especially if his rivals “get their acts together”, as they failed to do when Sarwar called on him to go.
It will not be lost on No 10 that Angela Rayner’s response to the Gorton defeat sounded like a leadership bid. “This result must be a wake-up call. It’s time to really listen – and to reflect … If we want to make the change we were sent into government to make, we have to be braver,” she said.
Her allies say she wants a shift on policy and presentation. “No 10 has been too timid making those arguments for things we have done, as well as how we push forward the future policy agenda,” one said. But they said she would be not be the instigator of any contest.
Wes Streeting, the ambitious health secretary whose allies insist he is “planning not plotting” for Starmer’s departure, has been keeping an unusually low profile since the Gorton result was announced.
Andy Burnham, unable to act against the prime minister after he was blocked from standing in the seat, is understood to feel there is a chance for a reset for Starmer after Morgan McSweeney’s departure from No 10.
An ally of the Greater Manchester mayor said of McSweeney: “He was very factional and politically driven. Keir now does have an opportunity to do things differently because of the changes in Downing Street. But May is obviously still a dangerous time for him.”
MPs, especially those on the soft left of the party, share this belief that the departure of Starmer’s chief of staff clears the way for a shift towards Labour’s progressive wing. “He [Starmer] does hear that call for change but people obviously want to see what that looks like,” one senior party figure said.
But for many MPs their concern over Starmer is not about whether the party needs to be facing left or right but his perceived inauthenticity, what they see as a lack of political judgment and his failure to set out a more positive story about the country’s future.
“We must not choose between our left or right flanks or set our sights on our opponents on either side but do something even more difficult: have an offer of our own that is distinctive,” another cabinet minister said.
A cabinet source added: “We should recognise that we do have the pulpit and so we can actually set the agenda and do things in government, rather than chasing other people’s narratives. We need more urgency, clarity and a clearer story.”
It would seem Starmer is safe for now. But the countdown to May has begun. Some Labour insiders are trying to see the upside. “He’s got just over two months to show he’s capable of change. Even though we’re in a bad place, I don’t think you can necessarily write off the chances of him surviving,” one said.
While the truce holds in the short-term, the mood among ministers and MPs across the party after their byelection trouncing is dark. As one MP put it: “I think it hastens everything. I thought we could maybe keep going for another year after May but definitely not now. I don’t think anything can save him now.”
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