Labour MPs back Starmer as he asks for more time to deliver on party manifesto
Sir Keir Starmer secured a show of support at a meeting of the parliamentary Labour party on Monday evening in a committee room at the House of Commons.
The beleaguered prime minister arrived to noisy cheers and applause from Labour MPs who had gathered for the weekly meeting.
Starmer sought to revive his premiership with a plea for more time to deliver Labour’s election manifesto and change the country. He apologised for his mistake in appointing Lord Peter Mandelson as US ambassador despite his known links with the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
An ally of the premier described the meeting as “Starmer unleashed”, and a Starmer sceptic said afterwards: “There won’t be a leadership bid any time soon, that felt like a genuine wall of backing for the PM.”
Anna Turley, Labour chair, said Starmer’s speech had been “raw and personal” and that he had “stepped up” to the occasion. “The party wants unity and wants him to succeed,” she added.
There was a sprinkling of hostile questions from a few MPs including Charlotte Nichols, Andy McDonald, Barry Gardiner and Paula Barker, according to people in the room.
One leftwing MP, referring to expected Labour losses at elections in May in Scotland, Wales and parts of England, said of the meeting: “It’s the usual pantomime with all the flunkies applauding. I wonder what they’ll be saying when they see the election results in May.”
Cabinet secretary Sir Chris Wormald set to leave government, officials say
Cabinet secretary Sir Chris Wormald is negotiating his departure from the UK government, according to officials, in another move that risks further destabilising Sir Keir Starmer’s administration.
Wormald’s expected exit, first reported by the Guardian, is part of a wider reset at the top of government, according to one person familiar with the matter.
As cabinet secretary, he is the country’s most senior civil servant — acting as a leading adviser to the prime minister and the cabinet, as well as heading up the civil service.
As one of the longest serving permanent secretaries on Whitehall at the time of his appointment to the role in December 2024, Wormald was viewed as a safe choice for a prime minister who aimed to completely rewire the British state.
Wormald, who has only been in post for 14 months, would be the shortest-serving cabinet secretary since the role was created in 1916.
Starmer ‘not prepared to walk away’ from his mandate or country
Sir Keir Starmer told the parliamentary Labour party that he wanted to make the leadership more “open and inclusive”.
He said the only people who would celebrate Labour turning in on itself would be the Tories and Reform.
“He said he was ‘not prepared to walk away from my mandate or my country’,” his spokesperson said on Monday evening. “He then talked passionately about having the most working-class cabinet ever behind him.”
Starmer described the battle with Reform UK and the politics of grievance as the “fight of our lives, the fight of our times”.
He added: “As long as I have breath in my body, I’ll be in that fight, on behalf of the country that I love and I believe in, against those that want to tear it up.”