Labour was thrown into fresh turmoil just days after Keir Starmer rounded off their annual conference, with two of its MPs openly calling for the Prime Minister to quit, warning he was “very unpopular” and destined to lead the party to defeat.
Richard Burgon, a former shadow cabinet minister, and Kim Johnson, a Liverpool MP, used an event at Labour’s annual conference to deliver a damning verdict on the Prime Minister’s leadership.
At a meeting entitled ‘Can Labour Win back the Working Class?’, Mr Burgon predicted that a disastrous result in next May’s elections would bring an end to Starmer’s time in office.
He said: “It’s inevitable that if next May, in the elections of the Welsh Parliament, the Scottish Parliament, and in the council elections across the country, it’s inevitable if those election results are as catastrophic as opinion poll after opinion poll suggests, it’s just a law of political gravity that the Prime Minister will go, and it will therefore turn out that this will have been his last conference.”
Ms Johnson went further, branding Sir Keir “very, very unpopular” and accusing him of driving away the very voters Labour needs to hold power.
She said: “He and those around him have made their mission to destroy the very foundations of the left of the party, which has undermined our ability to defend these policies within the party and driven away our working-class voter.”
Asked whether or not Labour could reconnect to its traditional base of support, she replied: “I would say, in answer to the question, can Labour win back the working class, I would have to say it can only do that under a new direction of this Labour Party.”
Mr Burgon, once a close ally of former Leader Jeremy Corbyn, suggested that defeat was “inevitable” and adds to fears inside Downing Street that some of the party’s MPs are preparing for life after Starmer.
Ms Johnson’s somewhat direct assessment that Labour can only reconnect with working-class voters “under a new direction” lays bare the sense of rebellion. The Liverpool MP has previously clashed with the leadership over policy and disciplinary issues, but her remarks in front of activists at conference mark her most direct challenge yet to Sir Keir’s authority.
Opposition figures in the Conservative Party were quick to jump on suggestions of division with Matt Vickers, the Deputy Chairman saying that Labour’s “civil war is out in the open”.
He added: “Labour MPs have all but put a clock on Keir Starmer’s premiership, six months to prove himself or face the chop.”
The Labour Party was keen to play down the calls for Keir Starmer to step aside, with a source saying that since Keir Starmer took office Labour had risen “from one of our worst election defeats in history to a landslide victory in 2024”.
They added: “In our first year in government, we took the tough but necessary decisions to put working people first. We know renewing Britain won’t be easy, but while Reform feeds off division and decline, our Labour Government is driving forward change to make working people better off in all corners of our country.”
