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Sir Keir Starmer has until next May to turn around his government’s fortunes, according to a growing number of Labour MPs and trade union leaders, as his allies warily eye Greater Manchester mayor Andy Burnham as a potential challenger.
Starmer’s attempt this month to move his government on to its “second phase” — with a focus on “delivery” of policies — has been thrown into disarray by the forced departures of deputy prime minister Angela Rayner and US ambassador Lord Peter Mandelson.
His sweeping ministerial reshuffle has caused widespread discontent among Labour MPs, with some claiming it was a factional exercise intended to marginalise the left of the party and reward allies of Starmer’s chief of staff, Morgan McSweeney.
With Labour polling at a little above 20 per cent — some 10 percentage points behind Nigel Farage’s Reform UK — and with tax rises looming in the November Budget, the discontent has spread to the wider Labour movement.
One trade union leader told the Financial Times: “Obviously no one will get rid of him one year into a Labour government. But my worry is that we are going to be a one term Labour government. Can he turn it around? I don’t know.”
Another union leader said: “The public don’t like him or know what he stands for. If Reform sweep the board in the May elections in Wales he faces a serious moment of peril.”
An increasing number of MPs now think elections to the Welsh Senedd and the Scottish parliament, along with polls to English councils, will prove a major test of Starmer’s authority and whether he can arrest the rise of Reform UK.
“He’s got until May but after that all bets are off,” said one mainstream Labour MP. Clive Lewis, a leftwing Labour MP, told the BBC: “We don’t have the luxury of carrying on this way with someone who I think increasingly, I’m sorry to say, just doesn’t seem up to the job.”
Sir Keir Starmer with Andy Burnham (R) mayor of Greater Manchester, who is seen as a potential threat to the prime minister © Ian Vogler/WPA Pool/Getty Images
Starmer is attempting to build bridges with unions and Labour MPs by promising to overturn this week Conservative amendments to the government’s bill to upgrade employment rights.
He said on Monday that the bill was “good for workers and good for business”, adding: “This government is delivering the biggest upgrade to workers’ rights in a generation.”
But there is a growing focus in Downing Street on the potential threat to Starmer posed by Burnham, who has called for more left-leaning policies such as wealth taxes, and who Labour MPs believe could seek to return to Westminster soon in a by-election.
Peter Kyle, business secretary and an ally of Starmer, suggested Burnham, nicknamed “the king of the north”, would be better off staying in regional politics.
Kyle told Sky News on Sunday that Burnham was “a real talent” but he added: ‘I think he is doing an incredible job in Manchester at the moment, I think Manchester really needs him.”
Bookmakers now put Burnham almost neck-and-neck with health secretary Wes Streeting as the most likely next Labour leader.
One route back to Westminster for Burnham would be if MP Andrew Gwynne, who was suspended by Labour in February after the leaking of offensive remarks about members of the public, stood down in his Gorton and Denton seat in east Manchester, where he has a majority of more than 13,000.
Lucy Powell, a Manchester MP who is contesting the Labour deputy leadership, is close to Burnham although she said it was “sexist” to suggest she was a proxy candidate for the Manchester mayor.
Powell, sacked by Starmer this month as leader of the House of Commons, told the Manchester Evening News that Labour had made “too many unforced errors”.
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She is now the bookmakers’ favourite to win the deputy leadership contest over Bridget Phillipson, education secretary, whose position in the cabinet will restrain her ability to criticise government policy.
Powell also suggested she had been punished for relaying “feedback” to Downing Street regarding Labour MPs’ concerns about government plans to cut welfare benefits by £5bn, which were ultimately dumped.
“I’ve never really been given the impression that I’m one of the chosen ones — far from it,” she said.
She insisted she was loyal to Starmer, but added: “Equally I don’t think we should shy away from having this conversation right now because clearly there are things that aren’t working.”
Meanwhile Phillipson launched her campaign for the deputy leadership with a promise to “unite the Labour party”, and urged members to look forward rather than backwards to “pass judgment on what has happened in the last year”.