Keir Starmer is facing pressure from all sides
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The Clare Byrne Show on Newstalk. With Aviva Insurance. and we turn now to politics in the United Kingdom and the news that the UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer is really facing pressure from all sides after Labour's disastrous local election performance. The Prime Minister has been making a key speech this morning in a bid to save his premiership. In a moment we'll speak to LBC reporter Henry Riley but let's take a listen to Keir Starmer who has said that he's taken responsibility for Labour's performance. He had a swipe at Nigel Farage yesterday who led, as we know, the Reform Party to huge gains over the weekend.
He took Britain for a ride. And unlike the Tories, actually, who at least had to face up to it, he just fled the scene.
Why is Keir Starmer facing pressure after the local elections?
And now he'll talk about almost anything other than the consequences of the one policy he actually delivered. Because he's not just a grifter, he is a chancer.
He's a chancer. Henry Riley, thank you very much for being with us. Good morning to you.
Morning, Clare.
That speech is still going on, is it?
Well, the speech is finished, but he's currently answering questions, quite difficult questions from the media.
So it was billed as a speech to save his job, really. How did he do?
Without being uncharitable, it's not the highest bar with Keir Starmer in terms of rhetorical flourishes. I mean, this is not the oration of someone like Sir Tony Blair, for example.
What key points did Keir Starmer make in his recent speech?
But nonetheless, I mean, really, he has got various eyes on him today, not just his own personal. constituency, which is the Labour Party and in particular the MPs, but also really the British public who can see that he is bruised after the shocking election results from last week. And I mean, he really had to appeal to both of those caucuses to try and stem the tide of Labour MPs. There's the sort of time of counting 43 of his parliamentary party that have called on him to go. That's really tough to come back from that. And people calling for you to go before they'd even heard the speech. There's also a challenger from within, Catherine West, who's a relatively unknown MP. She was sacked by Sir Keir Starmer as a minister just a few months ago.
She was saying that depending on this speech, she would launch a leadership election if no one else puts themselves forward. So we've got that to look forward to. But really at the heart of the speech, Claire, firstly, finally talking about Brexit, which, I mean, there's forever been this Ming-Wa strategy from the Labour Party where they have felt that that they simply cannot talk about Brexit because without trying to sort of narrow the characterisation, the red wall parts of northern England are sort of on a knife's edge in terms of whether they go Reform UK, Nigel Farage's party, or Labour, Keir Starmer's party. And they very much are in favour or were very much in favour of Brexit. And there's been a sense that you sort of can't talk about the ills of Brexit and that that was giving Nigel Farage a bit of breathing space because even he accepts that Brexit hasn't been a huge success.
And today, I think really what the prime minister was trying to display is that the shackles are off and that he thinks that we need a much closer relationship with Europe.
So what do you think happens next? Because I would imagine from those who are unsettled in the Labour Party, they don't want this thing to go on for a long period of time. They would like it sorted and done quickly.
Yeah, well, quite. And Catherine West, who I referenced, is the only person to come out so far and say that she's basically contemplating a leadership bid. But even she has said if she doesn't get the required number of MPs, which is 81, by the way, she reckons the sources close to her say they reckon she's got. around 40 at the moment but if she doesn't get to 81 names by tomorrow morning then she will basically call it quits as well now that is because a she doesn't want a protracted debate where this goes on and on and on but secondly we have the king's speech taking place on wednesday whereby um we're going to hear about the list of priorities for this government so this is very much the warm-up act the chance to galvanize and reassure a pretty
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