Labor MPs ‘copy the coup that deposed Tony Blair’ as polls show extent of looming Starmer election carnage
The mutinous Labor MPs are ready to use the tactics that ousted Tony Blair against Keir Starmer.
A group of backbenchers could issue an open letter urging the Prime Minister to set a timetable for his departure in the wake of this week’s local elections.
The move would mimic the coup by Gordon Brown’s allies in 2006, when a slew of ministerial aides – including Tom Watson – resigned. Within 24 hours Sir Tony had succumbed to the pressure.
The plans have been stepped up as more polls showed Labor on course for apocalyptic results on Thursday. Insiders fear the party could lose more than a thousand council seats and be defeated in parliamentary elections in Scotland and Wales.
Sir Keir has been desperately looking for a way to survive the backlash from his own MPs – after barely clinging on to the Mandelson scandal.
The government has scheduled the king’s speech for next Tuesday in a bid to ‘reset’ his premiership. Loyalists have also warned of the consequences of changing leaders – suggesting it could mean an early general election.
Mutinying Labor MPs ready to deploy the tactics that ousted Tony Blair against Keir Starmer (pictured yesterday)
The plot is said to imitate the coup d’état by Gordon Brown’s allies against Tony Blair in 2006
Housing Secretary Steve Reed went on air this morning to fight for the government, insisting he had not heard of the letter plot.
He warned the party against ‘doomscrolling’ through prime ministers.
“I speak to many of my fellow MPs, of course I do that all the time, but also to council leaders, and they are fed up with all this psychodrama,” he told Times Radio.
‘They want us as a party to focus on what we need to do to cast our vote next Thursday.
‘There are really important issues about who runs our councils, whether we can build the social housing this country needs, whether we can improve the public services that people use.
“The whole idea that we would copy the Conservatives and scroll through the leadership in a way that means the government is completely incapable of tackling the issues that matter to most of the British public is absolute nonsense, and I’m not going to get involved with that, and most of our MPs wouldn’t get involved with that either.”
According to the Times, several cabinet ministers are aware of the plot, with one minister admitting there is “real anger” within the parliamentary party.
In the letter from twenty years ago, the Brownites told Sir Tony that the ‘uncertainty about when you plan to leave office’ was ‘damage to the government and the party’.
Sir Keir has been supported so far because none of his main rivals – Angela Rayner, Andy Burnham and Wes Streeting – are prepared to strike.
But if the election is as bad as feared, many believe a wave of anger will make public the calls for change at the top.
A new mega-poll in London has warned that Labor is now under siege from all sides in its traditional stronghold.
More common was that of the party Support has fallen by 15 points since the general election, while the Greens have risen by 10 points.
Although Labor is still in the lead in the city, support is only 28 percent.
The Green Party is now breathing down Labor’s neck with 20 percent and is on course to achieve the highest vote share in a London borough for the first time.
Zack Polanski’s party is now the most popular in Hackney, with a three-point lead, and within two points of Labor in Islington, Lambeth and Lewisham.
The Greens are also expected to come second to Labor in 16 boroughs, coming within five points of the governing party in five of them.