Labour is in a full-blown leadership crisis. Keir Starmer’s allies in Downing Street believe he is facing an imminent coup, with critics planning to kick him out of Number 10 after the Budget on November 26, or perhaps after next May’s local elections. That’s why they have launched a pre-emptive strike, and attempted to stick the knife into Health Secretary Wes Streeting, seen as the person most likely to take over.
In comments made to friendly journalists, they attempted to portray Mr Streeting as disloyal. After all, nobody likes a traitor. They also warned that Sir Keir would not go quietly. Under Labour’s rules, he would be allowed to stand again if his opponents managed to force a leadership contest – and that’s exactly what he would do, friends are saying, creating a bloody and damaging struggle.
And Sir Keir’s aides are saying that a leadership battle would do huge damage to the UK, hurting the economy and our relations with foreign friends such as Donald Trump. But their cunnning plan to remove the threat to Sir Keir has backfired. They created a leadership crisis where it didn’t exist.
Now, the only topic of discussion at Westminster is how long the Prime Minister can remain in Number 10 – and who could replace him.
Observers will be on the lookout for any hint of disloyalty or ambition from Sir Keir’s Cabinet colleagues, and presenting it as evidence of a plot.
Remember when the Tories were in government and we kept on hearing talk about “letters” from angry Conservative backbenchers plotting to remove the Prime Minister? Even if there was some truth to it, all that speculation didn’t help. The endless stream of gossip just made it harder for the Prime Minister of the day (whether Theresa May, Boris Johnson, Liz Truss or Rishi Sunak) to do their job.
Downing Street have deliberately created their own version of the “letters” story. It shows how bad they are at doing politics.
But they’re not wrong to think Labour MPs are in despair about Sir Keir Starmer.
Many Labour MPs are convinced he’s bad at his job. They are pleased he led Labour back into Government, but don’t think he had any plan for what he would do when he got there.
Consider Labour’s efforts to close asylum seeker hotels, for example. When they came into power, they scrapped proposals from the last Conservative government to move asylum seekers into disused military bases. Instead, they planned to use “medium-sized” sites, such as disused student accommodation or blocks of flats.
Just over a year later, the policy changed. Now they want to use military bases again.
It was a wasted 12 months, and guess what? The asylum seekers are still in hotels.
That’s just one example. But the problem isn’t just a lack of clear policies. It’s also personal.
Labour MPs think Sir Keir doesn’t like them. They think he looks down on them. And that means they don’t like him either.
He lacks the human touch, When he sacks front-benchers, returning them to the backbenches, he doesn’t phone them up or send a nice letter thanking them for their service. There’s no attempt to make friends.
Labour MPs would indeed welcome a new leader. That doesn’t mean they are plotting a coup, however. The process of actually forcing a sitting Prime Minister out of Number 10 is so difficult and destructive that they might very well prefer to suffer in silence.
But Downing Street has pushed leadership speculation to the top of the agenda. And that actually makes a coup more likely.