The British Prime Minister, Keir Starmer, holds a critical Government meeting this Tuesday while requests increase in his Labor ranks for him to resign or present a timetable for his departure from power, after the debacle suffered by his party in the elections held last Thursday.
At least 72 Labor MPs have openly called on Starmer to resign while the Foreign and Home Ministers, Yvette Cooper and Shabana Mahmood, respectively, have asked the Prime Minister to establish an orderly transition of power, according to The Guardian newspaper today.
Labor suffered a crushing defeat in local by-elections in England and regional elections in Scotland and Wales.
Last night Starmer replaced six ministerial advisors – the lowest level of the Government – who had resigned yesterday after giving a speech in the British capital in which he established the priorities of his administration and promised, among other things, to put the United Kingdom “at the heart of Europe” after Brexit.
The speech was designed to calm internal concerns about his leadership after the electoral setback, but it did not achieve its objectives because hours later the requests from deputies for Starmer’s departure from power increased.
The 72 Labor MPs who have called on Starmer to step down or set a timetable for his resignation represent 17% of the party’s 403 MPs.
The requests began after Labor MP Catherine West announced that she is collecting signatures from the party’s parliamentarians to urge the prime minister to leave office by next September.
The signatures of 81 Labor MPs are required to challenge Starmer’s leadership.
Among the possible successors is the popular mayor of Manchester, Andy Burnham, but to do so he needs to first be elected deputy, while the other is the head of Health, Wes Streeting.
In last Thursday’s elections, Labor lost 1,496 councilors to remain with 1,068, while in Scotland it was left with 17 members in the Edinburgh parliament, compared to the 21 it had before, and in Wales it lost control of parliament by remaining with only nine of the 44 it had before the election.
