Tom Watson urges Labour MPs to stop plotting against Starmer — News Headlines
Tom Watson urged Labour MPs on Tuesday to stop plotting to remove Keir Starmer, saying on news headlines grounds that the party should not repeat the kind of internal revolt he once helped drive. He warned that two-dozen backbench MPs writing to demand the prime minister’s resignation would go down extremely badly with voters.
Watson said, "Whatever the rights and wrongs of Labour’s current woes, the answer is not two-dozen backbench MPs writing a public letter calling on the prime minister to resign." He added, "Voters will see a party talking to itself while the country is shouting at it."
Watson recalls 2006
The former deputy Labour leader and peer drew on his role in the attempted coup against Tony Blair in 2006. Watson said Blair faced a letter from some MPs calling on him to set a date for his departure as prime minister, and he described that move as reckless by comparison with the pressure now building around Starmer.
His intervention came as Labour figures braced for results expected to be particularly grim in Thursday’s elections for the Scottish and Welsh parliaments and English councils. Senior party figures said activists were being repeatedly told that the prime minister was the problem rather than the party, sharpening the pressure around any post-election blame game.
Steve Reed on Labour challenge
Steve Reed said Labour would risk annihilation if it decided to try to change leaders. Speaking to Times Radio on Tuesday, the housing and communities secretary said, "The whole notion that we would copy the Conservatives and go doomscrolling through leaders in a way that means the government is completely incapable of dealing with the things that matter to most of the British public is absolute nonsense, and I’m not going to engage in it, and most of our MPs would not engage in that either."
Reed said he believed most Labour MPs were not signed up to the idea of a challenge, even as Steve Wright reiterated his call for Starmer to go in an interview published on Tuesday. Wright said that if Thursday’s results were as bad as anticipated, the prime minister would be "a bit of a sitting duck".
Labour MPs after Thursday
Several names continue to hover over the question of who might move first if the result deepens the row. Andy Burnham, Angela Rayner and Wes Streeting were described as expected challengers, while one cabinet minister called the situation "A number of candidates are in a Mexican standoff but nobody is ready to pull the trigger."
That same minister said, "There will be a lot of noise and briefing and people will understandably be worried, but I think that Keir will still be here next week." For Labour MPs, the immediate choice is whether to turn frustration into a leadership contest or wait for the election results to pass before deciding who carries the blame.
