Britain, once synonymous with political stability, now sees him battling the hawks of his own cabinet. The question in the corridors of Westminster is no longer whether there will be a successor, but whether the country can stand one more leader without a popular mandate.
This morning Sir Keir Starmer’s appears divided over the most fundamental political question the leadership of a government can ever face: whether the prime minister should stay in office.
It is clear that such a split at the heart of power is unsustainable. Either ministers will have to resign or be sacked, or the prime minister himself will have to step down, the BBC analysis says.
The background of pressures
Last night (11/5) ministers visited Keir Starmer and the advice he received was radically different. Someone urged him to continue the battle. Others asked him to set a timeline for his exit, while some tried to help him analyze how he could manage the scenario he now faces.
The ‘barrier’ now appears to have been broken, with Labor MPs making public their loss of confidence in the Prime Minister with such frequency that it is sometimes difficult to count them.
“Desperately miserable”
In the hours following the prime minister’s crucial speech on Monday, the verdicts, public and private, began to flow. “Just hopelessly miserable” was the laconic view of one Labor MP. It was a prescient criticism, given the flood of public outcry from his own colleagues that was to follow.
Many of these MPs can’t shake the feeling that Keir Starmer is alienating too many voters at a time when Labor is struggling to cope with the rise of Reform UK.
The “black” future
There are, of course, those Labor MPs who watch the collapse with trepidation, believing that stability is a privilege not to be sacrificed lightly, especially in the midst of war and an economy suffering from the Iran crisis.
How does the prime minister see all this? People close to him say he remains steadfast in his decision to continue, arguing that a protracted process to choose a leader would endanger the party and the country by putting forward a successor with a “questionable popular mandate” as he will not have won a general election.
However, the numbers and the climate facing the prime minister are now bleak. “Obviously things are not good,” admitted a cabinet ally.
