For a moment in July last year Keir Starmer was master of all he surveyed in Britain, with a whopping majority of MPs. Now, 500 days into his premiership on Sunday, the hairline cracks in his leadership have turned into chasms.
The political contagion of the UK's recent frenzied past remains unchecked with the growing likelihood that the prime minister will soon face a direct challenge to unseat him.
That thinking has come to the fore following a fiasco this week in which Downing Street made a backfiring attempt to see off one of the challengers, the Health Secretary Wes Streeting, by briefing against him, in the belief that it would scupper the bid.
That flopped spectacularly for Mr Starmer, draining yet more political credit from the Labour leader's near-empty bank, while increasing speculation about his looming political demise.
Icebergs ahead
Veteran Labour figures have told The National that some believe a change of leadership is necessary before the party founders further.
“Why wait to hit the iceberg if you can do a course correction?” one said. That reflects the sense of panic gripping the party as its popularity sinks ever further, with one poll suggesting it has even been overtaken by the resurgent Green party.
The leadership argument has grown with the increasing likelihood that Labour will face an “electoral meltdown” at important elections next May in Scotland, Wales and English local councils.
“A lot of people are asking, ‘why wait until May when you’ve lost the government of Wales for the first time and so on',” the insider said. “Why not do it now? It’s just a matter of timing rather than if it’s going to happen. Starmer will definitely be challenged and then it’s a question of A, does he want to fight it? And B, has he got enough juice to win?”
Whispers of revolt
While the party has a whopping parliamentary majority with its 400 MPs, a vast number of those come with slim electoral margins. The party only secured just over a third of the popular vote, but the quirks of the electoral system gave it nearly two thirds of seats.
Since then Labour has plummeted in the polls, with its popularity cut almost in half to 18 per cent, about the same as the Conservatives and half of the increasingly popular far-right Reform UK. A series of leadership blunders and policy mishaps have plagued Mr Starmer’s constant attempts to stabilise the tottering economy and govern effectively, and open revolt could soon follow.
The signs were already there in September during the Labour conference in Liverpool when the popular Manchester mayor Andy Burnham made an open leadership pitch that was ultimately rebuffed by a robust closing speech by Mr Starmer.
But that, it now appears, has not stopped the conspiratorial whispers, or indeed the blunders. There is a suggestion that the outing of Mr Streeting’s leadership aspirations – “he’s certainly been on manoeuvres”, said one Labour official – was propelled by other rivals, potentially Shabana Mahmood, the Home Secretary, who has established a reputation as the tough, right-wing candidate.
Above the parapet
Ms Mahmood, the first female Muslim Home Secretary, will certainly not want to put herself forward for prime minister, at least for the time being.
For Mr Starmer to be challenged directly, 20 per cent of the parliamentary Labour party – 80 MPs – would have to publicly declare their support for a candidate. That is a significant number, and, unlike the Tories, who can submit private letters of no confidence, Labour members have to be open, with potentially career-ending results.
However, the Labour insider suggested a left-winger such as Louise Haigh might put herself forward as a “stalking horse candidate” that could create momentum for a proper challenge.
While the British public will look on with incredulity at the possibility of an eighth prime minister in 15 years – there were just three between 1979 and 2007 – in the feverish bubble of Westminster MPs are fretting that they will lose their seats. And they have good reason to worry. In the evolving fragmentation of British politics, Labour MPs believe that only about 40 of their seats are now truly safe.
“A lot of people are sweating,” said one backbench MP with a majority of just under 5,000 votes. “No one really feels safe and there’s panic among those with small majorities, and a lot of our constituents are very angry.”
Even with a fairly strong majority he does not feel secure, with the Greens surging and independent Muslim MPs affiliated with Jeremy Corbyn’s hard-left grouping also posing a threat. “Labour's traditional coalition is disintegrating in multiple directions,” he said.
Taxes incoming
And it’s not going to get any better. On November 26 the beleaguered Chancellor, Rachel Reeves, will announce her autumn budget, and it won’t be pretty. Given Britain’s growing deficit, inflation and high borrowing, she will almost certainly have to raise taxes, but at the last minute appears to have ducked breaking an election pledge by not raising income tax.
It will be a crucial moment for the Chancellor and the Prime Minister, with both their careers now dependent on whether they can weather the inevitable storm. The ill-feeling against the government has been growing almost since it took office. It did indeed inherit a shaky economy and malfunctioning administration from the Conservatives, yet it demonstrates little backbone.
Labour announced the end of winter fuel subsidies, but then retracted that months later, and it backtracked on a £25 billion pledge on green infrastructure, among a series of other minor U-turns and mishaps.
The Downing Street operation has been plagued by resignations – starting with that of chief of staff Sue Gray last year – and has now descended in what is believed to have been the briefing of journalists by her replacement Morgan McSweeney over Mr Streeting’s apparent leadership aspirations.
Mr Starmer told his Downing Street staff on Thursday that briefing against cabinet ministers was “completely unacceptable”, after his senior No 10 team told him that none of them had spoken to journalists about Mr Streeting. However, calls have been growing for Mr McSweeney to be sacked.
Reform the winners
The nature of that backfiring strategy was such that by Wednesday afternoon Mr Streeting was considered to be ahead of Reform’s populist leader Nigel Farage as the favourite to be the next prime minister. While the debacle is beneficial to Reform, Westminster expects Labour will hold on to power until the last possible moment in 2029.
“What these Labour MPs seem to not realise is that if they want to save their seats, they don't get rid of Starmer, they knuckle down and get on with governing the country effectively,” said Gawain Towler, Mr Farage’s former communications chief.
“But never interrupt an enemy when they're making a mistake, and by gum, they keep on making them, so crack on boys,” he added. “But is it good for the country? No.”
In the last Conservative government David Jones was an MP and minister who witnessed first-hand the political ructions which shook the party during the leadership of Boris Johnson, Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak.
“You get so punch drunk in these leadership battles that it becomes normal,” he said. “But it's not good, because apart from anything else the fractures within the party become visible to the world at large, which is the last thing you want.”
He added that although many Labour MPs were new to Westminster politics, they understood that if there was an early election, most of them would lose their seats. That could mean that Mr Starmer would “threaten an early election to keep his backbenches in check”.
Long stroll
Which leaves people such as the veteran Labour MP Barry Gardiner somewhat in despair. He suggested that the Streeting counter-briefing had set off a “circular firing squad”, and called on his party to “get on and govern”.
“Everyday people looking at this are going to say … ‘what do these politicians think they’re doing?’” he told the BBC.
Why has Britain, which was so wedded to two-party politics for more than two centuries, suddenly fractured politically? Political observers believe that the explosion of social media, from which many take their political views, coupled with the ructions caused by the 2016 Brexit vote, are the chief causes that have led to the possibility of six parties contesting many seats in the 2029 election.
A hint on whether Mr Starmer was feeling the pressure came after the Labour MP for Rhyl, Gill German, asked him at Prime Minister’s Questions on Wednesday if he would join her for a stroll along the seaside town’s new promenade on Wales's north coast.
“That’s a very appealing invitation just at the moment,” Mr Starmer quipped, all too aware of the growing cracks in the disgruntled ranks behind him.
