Chapter 1: What immediate challenges does Keir Starmer face in Labour leadership?
This is The Guardian.
If Labour mess this up, then the chances are we have a Nigel Farage government.
I know that people are frustrated, and some people frustrated with me.
Keir Starmer promised a gesture, but it wasn't a holiday to the Maldives. It was like a Ā£3.99 bunch of roses from the garage down the road. For a lot of Labour MPs, something needs to change. The question is what and when.
I know I have my doubters, and I know I need to prove them wrong, and I will.
this kind of whole game theory that a lot of what you do depends on what other people do. And it's very, very hard to predict, very fast moving. We're still in this deadlock, really.
Keir Starmer is feisting for his political survival as a make-or-break speech fails to calm mutinous MPs and calls Grow for him to go by September. From The Guardian's Today In Focus, this is The Latest with me, Lucy Hough. Well, I'm joined by Peter Walker, our senior political correspondent.
Thanks for dialling in from Westminster, Peter, on a very dramatic and fast-moving day and a very dramatic weekend.
I've been dramatic today up to a point, as much as Keir Starmer manages drama, but yes.
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Chapter 2: What were the implications of the recent local elections for Labour?
Because what a lot of Labour MPs are increasingly realising is that when reform wins seats, particularly in the kind of northern, quote, red wall areas, and also in some of the London councils too, because Labour are losing votes not only to them, but also to the Greens, which is splitting the left vote.
And what a lot of them want is, I mean, they understand the rationale for having a kind of reasonably robust immigration offer. So reform don't hoover up every single small C conservative vote. But they want some kind of offering to show to voters who might be tempted to go green, you know, look, you can go with us. And I think it would have probably had to be something big.
They're quite scuppered by the fact there's no money around. But I mean, I don't know. I don't make the policies, but it could have been a nod towards electoral reform or closer links with Europe. He did talk about Europe quite a lot. And interestingly said he thought Brexit had made the UK less secure and less rich, which is quite something.
Which was a direct attack line against Nigel Farage, who he said, you know, promised you the world when he campaigned for Brexit, secured Brexit in no small part and failed Britain as a nation. Thank you so much for having me. above the parapet. She's since in the wake of this speech said, it was a good speech, but it's too little too late. She's rode back from her direct leadership challenge.
But she set out a timetable of September for a sort of orderly transition, which would require signatures of 81 MPs, 20% of the Parliamentary Labour Party to back that. Where do things stand there? How much of a risk is Starmer facing?
It's difficult to say because the one practical point to note is that even if she did have more than 81 MPs replying to this email she sent to all Labour MPs saying, yes, I do want him to set a timetable, that has no force. If you have 81 MPs saying that they're going to back you to challenge for the leadership under Labour rules, that does mean something.
But just saying we would like him to go at a certain point, you know, it doesn't force him to do anything. It has the kind of effect of being a no-confidence letter, but you'd probably need more than 80 MPs to do that. With West, it's quite interesting because no one expected that. She is a reasonably long-serving MP. She represents a North London constituency.
I've been talking to people who know her and
who who understand the rationale for what she did and apparently she was sitting watching the results come in and she's a formal former council leader and she saw so many friends in north london councils just lose their seats and she's getting more and more angry and thinking surely someone's going to do something but then no one did and apparently she decided to just immediately act before everyone got back to westminster and she was basically talked around from doing it right but i think
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