UK's Starmer says his government is a 10-year project despite calls to quit

LONDON: British Prime Minister Keir Starmer vowed to fight on, describing his government as a “10-year ‌project” despite mounting calls for him to quit after his party’s drubbing in local elections earlier this week.

Starmer’s Labour Party suffered the worst local election losses for a governing party in more than three decades, while the populist Reform UK party made significant gains – prompting a growing number of ​Labour lawmakers to call for his removal.

A former minister in Starmer’s government, Catherine West, threatened to seek the ​backing of lawmakers to trigger a leadership contest unless his cabinet took steps to remove him ⁠by Monday.

Under party rules, it would take 20% of the parliamentary party, or 81 lawmakers, to trigger a leadership challenge. About ​30 members of parliament have so far publicly voiced opposition to his leadership.

Asked by the Observer newspaper in an interview published ​on Sunday whether he would lead Labour into the next general election and serve a full second term, Starmer replied: “Yes, I will.”
He added: “I’m not going to walk away from the job I was elected to do in July 2024. I’m not going to plunge the country into ​chaos.”

If Starmer were removed in the coming weeks, Britain would end up with its seventh prime minister in the past ​decade.

So far, Starmer’s cabinet has stayed loyal, despite Thursday’s losses.

Education minister Bridget Phillipson said she was confident he could turn things ‌around, telling ⁠Sky News on Sunday that Starmer would set out a “fresh direction” for Britain in a speech on Monday.

“We got a real kicking from the voters, there’s no escaping that,” she said. “We have to reflect seriously on that.”

West, who served as a junior foreign minister until Starmer sacked her last year, said she would listen to Starmer’s speech on Monday before making a ​final decision about whether to ​launch a leadership challenge.

Asked whether ⁠she could secure the numbers, West told the BBC: “We will find out.”

However, some left-wing Labour MPs — often critical of Starmer — urged colleagues not to back her plan.

John McDonnell, a Labour lawmaker ​who was the party’s finance chief under former leader Jeremy Corbyn, suggested that people in ​the “shadows” were trying ⁠to exploit West’s concerns to force an early contest. Another lawmaker, Ian Byrne, warned against a rushed leadership bid, saying it could be “manipulated into a coronation by a party clique.”

Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham, seen as a potential left-wing contender, is not currently ⁠an MP ​and would therefore be ineligible to stand in a contest held soon.

Starmer ​must call the next national election by 2029. If he remained in office through a second full term, he would become the third-longest continuously serving British ​leader in the past two centuries, after Margaret Thatcher and Tony Blair.