How Labour MPs can save Anas Sarwar's election chances by ousting Keir Starmer
If someone like Health Secretary Wes Streeting took over as Prime Minister, Scottish Labour might be able to beat Reform to second place in next year’s Holyrood election
Events, my dear boy, events. That was the saying attributed to British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan when he was asked what troubled a government most. It applies now as much as it did back in the early 60s when Macmillan seemed unbeatable.
As an outspoken MP, Angela Rayner always sailed close to the wind in attacking opponents, that’s one of the reasons why Labour members liked her so much. Two weeks ago, no one foresaw the event of her scandal-driven resignation or the dramatic scale of the reshuffle that her move to the backbenches would initiate.
For months, all eyes had been on the fate of Chancellor Rachel Reeves, whose Halloween Budget resulted in all sorts of scary happenings arising from her measures.
Then, no sooner had the reshuffle been delivered and the government’s objective turned to selling the latest reset when a new scandal emerged in the exposure of the true links between Peter Mandelson, Keir Starmer’s choice as British Ambassador to the US, and convicted paedophile Jeffrey Epstein. Despite some initial attempts to play down the relationship, when it was shown that Mandelson remained very supportive and close to Epstein after conviction there could be only one outcome.
An unpopular Budget looms
Starmer then sought to seize the initiative and assert his leadership and ability to control the narrative by letting it be known he chose to sack Mandelson, but the waves of the latest storm now threaten to sink his own premiership.
The atmosphere in Westminster appears febrile, with MPs willing to say it is not a question of if Starmer leaves Downing Street for good, but when. The May elections for Holyrood, the Welsh Senedd and English council – where Labour enjoys a high watermark of sitting councillors, meaning it has much to lose – are seen as the most likely test for the Prime Minister’s survival.
READ MORE: Why the £5bn black hole John Swinney helped dig in Scotland's finances is only getting bigger
But events, dear boy, events. Something further could arise that puts immense pressure on Starmer. There is the Budget on November 26 that is highly likely to contain many unpopular measures – either with ordinary voters, Labour MPs (in ministerial posts or on the backbenches) or both.
Instead of sacking Reeves, which Starmer could and arguably should have done in his recent reshuffle, the Prime Minister now needs her to survive and justify being by his side because she has turned at least some aspects of the economy round.
Throwing down the red gauntlet
What Starmer and Reeves can control will count for nothing if, rather than wait on events dictating what happens to Starmer, a Cabinet minister seizes the opportunity and formally challenges the Prime Minister to a leadership election.
While the consensus is that most Labour MPs will want to wait until after the May elections, there is a surprisingly low threshold for throwing down the red gauntlet. Writing in The Spectator, Richard Johnson, an authority on Labour from Queen Mary University of London, pointed out Labour rules require only 20 per cent of Labour MPs to sign a nomination paper for a challenge to the party leader.
As Starmer is unlikely to resign, a challenger would need to emerge. In other words, a Cabinet minister with ambitions, possibly someone like Health Secretary Wes Streeting, might judge there is only a short window of opportunity where he can assert his leadership ambitions successfully without other challengers arriving on the scene.
If nominations could be lined up in advance, Labour’s national executive committee sets a tight deadline for nominations, and no one else is ready to pull together 80-plus nominations – the contest would be Streeting versus Starmer in a members' ballot.
The momentum would surely be for a change to provide time to rebuild before the next general election. Streeting could win.
Burnham or Miliband to the rescue?
Such an approach would be an alternative to waiting for a wider contest by which time Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham could have fought and won a parliamentary by-election, possibly choreographed for the purpose of changing the party leadership. But events, dear boy, events.
Who’s to say in the current political climate Reform UK could not defeat Burnham even in a supposedly safe Labour seat? The public never likes politicians taking them for granted.
A further scenario would be for Ed Miliband to decide to enter any contest – a figure who, along with Rayner, enjoys popular support among the membership.
From Holyrood, Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar can only look on. He has seen what, only a year ago, was considered the strong prospect of him becoming the next First Minister dissipate as the repeated betrayal of promises by Starmer and Reeves has helped revive support for the SNP and feed the growth of Reform in Scotland.
Starmer on his way out
Labour’s difficulty will be that the poorest judges of potential party leaders are usually the members – a fault shared by all parties. Their lack of nuance prevents anything other than the purist adherents, rather than those appealing to the wider electorate, being considered.
Would a change in the party leadership that delivered a more popular or even just personable occupant of 10 Downing Street make a difference for Labour in Scotland? Were that new occupant Streeting, his young fresh face might just give Sarwar enough of a bounce to edge ahead of Reform and into second place. Were it Miliband, then his devout adherence to job-destroying, net-zero theology would surely become more of a hindrance than a help.
When it comes to changing leaders, the Conservatives have demonstrated parties should be careful what they wish for. What looks like the least likely scenario, from where his many misjudgments have taken him, is that Sir Keir Starmer will be Prime Minister this time next year. But events, dear boy, events…
Brian Monteith is a former member of the Scottish and European parliaments and editor of ThinkScotland.org
Comments
Want to join the conversation? Please or to comment on this article.