The most dangerous moment of Keir Starmer’s premiership came just after lunchtime on Wednesday, when mutiny was the talk of the Commons tea room. Anger is widespread across Labour – but it was at its most palpable among the party’s new MPs, as the Conservatives used a humble address to force the disclosure of the vetting documents and communications linked to Peter Mandelson, disgraced by his close association with Jeffrey Epstein.
“At about 2pm yesterday, if someone had pulled the trigger, we would have moved,” one 2024 intake MP said on Thursday. “No one dared. I think that says a lot.” Another new MP said they had “contempt” for leadership contenders who had not taken their chance. “Sometimes in politics, it’s about leadership. We needed leadership.”
New MPs feel they are being tarnished by the same kind of sleaze that brought down the Conservatives, when they had believed that the Labour government would end that kind of politics. It was Labour who pioneered the use of humble address to disclose embarrassing private government communications. “In the tea room during the debate, it was the first time I have heard people openly discussing candidates and challenges, not caring who heard,” one Labour source said.
But four MPs from the 2024 intake told the Guardian on Thursday they were beginning to believe that there was no candidate ready or even brave enough to trigger Starmer’s downfall. “If you are not brave enough to be first out of the traps, you don’t deserve to be prime minister,” one said. Angela Rayner’s stock is higher after her intervention in the debate that saved the government from defeat over the release of the Mandelson documents. Wes Streeting has the most MPs willing to take a risk and back him. But both, MPs said, have issues that meant they could not make their move on Wednesday.
Rayner is waiting for the judgment of HMRC over unpaid stamp duty, the issue which caused her resignation. Streeting, who was at the launch of the NHS cancer plan, was absent at the critical moment – and had a close friendship with Mandelson that now looks like a significant liability. Allies of both insisted they had no intention of any move against Starmer. “I just can’t see the cabinet going when it would topple the government and there’s no clear person to take over,” another Labour source said.
Several MPs on Thursday went public to suggest a change of leadership was needed – the leftwing MPs Rachael Maskell, John McDonnell and Barry Gardiner, as well as the Hull East MP Karl Turner, who is angry with Starmer’s reforms to jury trials. But many once loyalist MPs said that the prime minister was in place now only because of the reluctance of his challengers. One senior MP said: “The biggest thing Keir has going for him right now is that there’s not an obvious successor. When we do change, there will have to be a bombastic moment so people notice.”
