Keir Starmer has vowed to stay as PM into the 2030s he faces another week of trial by fire over the Mandelson scandal.
The PM insisted he will fight the next election and moaned that the voices of ‘loyal’ Labour MPs are not heard, despite mounting unrest in the party and Cabinet.
The comments came with his former chief aide Morgan McSweeney due to give potentially explosive evidence to the Commons foreign affairs committee on Tuesday. On the same day there could be a key Commons vote on whether to refer Sir Keir to the privileges committee over allegations he misled Parliament.
Meanwhile, Labour anxiety is rising over the looming local elections – which are looking apocalyptic for the party across English councils as well as in Scotland and Wales.
Allies of Angela Rayner have been mobilising for the results to trigger a crisis, with one MP telling the Mail on Sunday the ‘deadly stalemate’ cannot be allowed to drag on. However, the ex-deputy PM is still not thought to have resolved her wrangling with HMRC about unpaid stamp duty.
Keir Starmer has vowed to stay as PM into the 2030s he faces another week of trial by fire over the Mandelson scandal
The comments came with his former chief aide Morgan McSweeney due to give potentially explosive evidence to the Commons foreign affairs committee on Tuesday
Allies of Angela Rayner have been mobilising for the results to trigger a crisis, with one MP telling the Mail on Sunday the ‘deadly stalemate’ cannot be allowed to drag on
Sir Keir has also benefited from the fact another prospective successor, Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham, remains outside of Parliament and not able to be a leadership candidate.
The premier attempted a fightback this weekend by giving an interview to the Sunday Times. Asked if he planned to fight the next election – expected in 2029 – Sir Keir said: ‘Yes.’
He said: ‘We didn’t wait 14 years to get elected, we didn’t change the Labour Party, we didn’t do all that it entailed to win the election and the mandate for change, not to deliver on it.’
Sir Keir voiced frustration over the ongoing questions about his handling of the Mandelson situation, and his decision to sack Foreign Office mandarin Olly Robbins.
‘I’ve answered I don’t know how many of them,’ he said.
‘But at the same time, I’ve got a huge amount of work to do on the war on two fronts.’
Sir Keir insisted the ‘vast majority’ of MPs wanted him to stay and ‘get on with the job’.
‘What you never hear from are all the people who are supportive, loyal and just want to get on with the job,’ he said.
‘And that is the vast majority of people in the parliamentary Labour Party.
‘They’re pleased to be in power. They’ve waited a long time to be in power. And they just want to get on with their job. They don’t make a lot of noise about it,’ he said.
Despite the PM’s bullish comments, Survation polling for grassroots site Labour List found 46 per cent thought the party should change its leader, against 44 per cent who wanted Sir Keir to hang on.
Elections guru Sir John Curtice has warned that Labour’s drubbing on May 7 could be of an ‘existential’ scale.
He told The Independent: ‘The Labour Party’s at 19 per cent in the opinion polls. They’re running at a half of the level of support they got in 2022, which is when two-thirds of the seats were last contested. Starmer is deeply unpopular in the polls.
‘Labour and the Tories are heading for a horrendous set of results. They may be bad, they may be very bad, and they may be existential.’
Labour Mayors are already gearing up to blame the dire outcome on the Government’s performance.
Sir Keir has also benefited from the fact another prospective successor, Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham (pictured right with the PM and Angela Rayner), remains outside of Parliament and not able to be a leadership candidate
Sadiq Khan told the Financial Times last week was ‘really frustrated’ about the Mandelson ‘omnishambles’.
‘I’m afraid what will happen is that rather than saying to voters, ‘Listen, this is the difference that a Labour council, working with a Labour mayor and a Labour government, can make’, people may decide to punish the imperfections of the government,’ he said.
Steve Rotheram, the Liverpool Metro mayor, said Sir Keir’s U-turns on policies were ‘overshadowing the good stuff’.
