Starmer tells Labour MPs he is ‘not prepared to walk away’ after call for him to resign – as it happened

Keir Starmer has faced down immediate calls for his resignation after receiving the full backing of his cabinet and delivering an impassioned appeal to the PLP this evening that appears to have steadied the government’s ship, at least for now.

With his position in peril over his appointment of Peter Mandelson as ambassador to the US, Starmer’s leadership was then plunged into further tumult with the resignation of his chief of staff Morgan McSweeney over the affair. But despite an intervention from Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar and calls from most opposition leaders for him to go, Starmer appears to have done just enough, as he told a crucial meeting of more than 400 Labour MPs and peers that he was “not prepared to walk away” from his mandate and plunge the country into further chaos. The PM pledged to change his Downing Street operation and to fight any challenge that came his way, warning his rivals: “I have won every fight I’ve ever been in.”

Many at the meeting said the PM had succeeded in shifting the narrative after coming out fighting, taking accountability for mistakes that have been made, and pledging to mend relations with MPs. He also stressed that Labour needed to take the fight to Reform UK, which he described as “the fight of our times”. But others warned that Starmer has emerged damaged and was “not out of the woods yet”.

After 24 hours of high drama, tonight Starmer did enough to bring himself back from the brink, but whether it’s enough to unify the party around his leadership – with rivals quietly jockeying for position – long term remains to be seen. For now, he’s surviving but most definitely not thriving.

• Angela Rayner threw her weight behind the prime minister, bringing a halt to a potential coup, minutes after the Guardian revealed an unfinished website claiming to launch her leadership campaign was temporarily published.

• Wes Streeting published private WhatsApp messages with Mandelson – including ones which questioned Starmer’s communications skills and the government’s growth plan – in an effort to draw a line under his relationship with the disgraced peer and protect future political ambitions.

• Tim Allan, Starmer’s director of communications, also quit after only five months in the job, to “allow a new No 10 team to be built”, leaving the prime minister looking for his fifth communications chief since he took office.

• Chris Wormald, the UK’s most senior civil servant, is negotiating his exit from the role as part of a broader shake-up of Downing Street, the Guardian learned, adding to the sense of turmoil at the top of government.

• Labour insiders fear that McSweeney’s departure leaves the prime minister dangerously exposed as he heads towards a series of policy and electoral challenges – including the Gorton and Denton byelection later this month – that could determine his political future.

Lib Dem leader Ed Davey – who notably didn’t call for Keir Starmer’s resignation today like other opposition parties, though he did call for a no confidence vote in parliament last week – has said there must be a general election if Labour MPs do not “sort themselves out”.

Davey told broadcasters earlier:

Labour were elected to bring change to the country and to end the chaos we saw under the Conservatives. But Keir Starmer has failed to deliver, and we still have this daily soap opera. And it’s damaging the country.

Labour MPs have either got to sort this out among themselves, or there is going to have to be a general election.

And Tan Dhesi, the Labour MP for Slough, did not mince his words when giving his assessment of where the government is tonight. He told Sky News:

This is an existential crisis for the prime minister, for our party, for our government.

And yeah, I mean, this has been fraught.

He said that upon returning to his constituency after Thursday, he had to address his local party members and take questions about the scandal.

“I don’t want to be standing there, you know, when I’m visiting the dementia clinic or going to the local hospital … answering these sort of questions and apologising on behalf of us in Westminster,” he said.

That’s not something that I came into politics [for] … I don’t want to be associated with that.

However, the BBC cites several sources inside the room where the meeting took place as saying Starmer was faced with a number of critical questions from MPs, including at least two that asked about the peerage for former Downing Street director of communications Matthew Doyle.

“Several of my colleague were very forthright,” one Labour MP told the BBC. “The message got across that things need to change and change quickly.”

Deputy Labour leader Lucy Powell has told Sky News that “dozens” of MPs turned up to support Keir Starmer this evening.

I think what we saw tonight – very, very clearly and resoundingly – was how much support there is for Keir Starmer as our leader in the PLP [parliamentary Labour Party].

I’ve never known a meeting quite like that one this evening.

I think there were maybe three or four or more standing ovations for Keir, including when he entered the room.

Powell added, “we all recognise it’s been a difficult week” and “difficult few days”.

But MPs from across the Labour Party, in their dozens and dozens, wanted to come along this evening to show that the prime minister has their full support.

The most senior civil servant in Downing Street is negotiating his exit as part of a wider shake-up of Keir Starmer’s operation after one of the most dramatic 48 hours of the prime minister’s time in office, sources have told the Guardian.

Chris Wormald, the cabinet secretary, is understood to be negotiating the terms of his departure from No 10. If he does step down, Wormald would be the third senior Downing Street staff member to leave after the departures of Morgan McSweeney, the prime minister’s chief of staff, and Tim Allan, his communications director.

Wormald was appointed just over a year ago but has been under pressure for several months, with some of those close to Starmer having come to view him as a “disastrous” appointment.

One government source said “the writing is on the wall” for Wormald, with Starmer keen to reassert his authority over both his parliamentary party and the wider government after a turbulent past few days.

Another source said Wormald was in talks over taking a seat in the House of Lords as part of his exit deal.

Environment secretary Emma Reynolds has said the “whole Cabinet supports the prime minister”.

Speaking to GB News this evening, she added:

We have a united front here, and the meeting of the parliamentary Labour party, which I have just come from, there was a real sense of unity in that room behind Keir Starmer because we need this Labour government to face outwards, not inwards, not having fights with ourselves, but actually focusing on delivering the change that we have a five-year mandate to do.

Asked about Anas Sarwar’s calls for Starmer to step down, she said: “I think he is wrong, and I respectfully disagree with him.”

She went on to say that the prime minister received “several standing ovations” during today’s PLP meeting “because he is somebody with great integrity who deeply cares about the future of this country”.

Karl Turner, the Labour MP for Kingston upon Hull East, has said Keir Starmer shut down “any challenge against his leadership” during the parliamentary Labour party (PLP) meeting this evening.

Posting on X, Turner wrote: “PM was at his best tonight. Reflective. Apologetic. But strong.

“Came out fighting. Put to bed any idea of any challenge against his leadership.”

Turner added that it was clear the PLP expects to “see some changes”, explaining that it “needs to feel included and we must use all of the talents our PLP has to offer”.

Keir Starmer urged Labour MPs and peers to unite in the fight against Nigel Farage’s Reform UK during the PLP meeting.

He described the battle with Reform as the “fight of our lives, the fight of our times”.

Starmer added:

It goes to the heart and soul of who we are as a party, as a government, and as a country, what it is to be British… And if they ever get in, they will divide, divide, divide. And it will tear this beautiful country apart. That is the fight of our times.

Starmer told the packed committee room in the House of Commons that as long as he has “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”.

“That is my fight, that is all of our fight, and we’re in this together,” he added.

Speaking during a meeting of the parliamentary Labour party, Keir Starmer told MPs and peers he is “not prepared to walk away” from his mandate as prime minister.

Starmer said:

I have won every fight I’ve ever been in.

I fought to change the Crown Prosecution Service so it better served victims of violence against women and girls. I fought to change the Labour Party to allow us to win an election again.

People told me I couldn’t do it. And then they gradually said, you might just get over the line.

We won with a landslide majority. Every fight I’ve been in, I have won.

Starmer went on to say he has had “detractors every step along the way, and I’ve got them now.

“Detractors that don’t want a Labour government at all, and certainly not one to succeed,” he added.

“But I’ll tell you this, after having fought so hard for the chance to change our country, I’m not prepared to walk away from my mandate and my responsibility to my country, or to plunge us into chaos, as others have done.”

Keir Starmer appeared “absolutely determined” during a meeting of the parliamentary Labour party (PLP), Downing Street sources said.

Starmer apologised for appointing Lord Peter Mandelson as UK ambassador to the US and paid tribute to his former chief of staff, Morgan McSweeney, during the meeting, insiders told the Press Association.

As a reminder, McSweeney stepped down yesterday after advising the prime minister to appoint Mandelson as US ambassador despite his known ties to Epstein.

Starmer also reportedly told MPs he wanted to give more weight to the PLP’s views, acknowledging he had not been “open or inclusive enough”, but added he was not prepared to walk away from his mandate or the country.

Chancellor Rachel Reeves has said Keir Starmer’s address to Labour MPs was “excellent” but admitted it had been a “very difficult” period after revelations about Peter Mandelson and Jeffrey Epstein’s ties emerged.

She said:

Everyone said, Keir is a man of great integrity and he is the person with a mandate to deliver the change that all of our constituents want to see.

The last few days have been very, very difficult for the country, most importantly for the victims of Epstein, difficult for the party.

Mistakes have been made but lessons will be learned.

The prime minister has reportedly left now after spending over an hour addressing the PLP and it seems like it’s gone well.

Sky News’s Beth Rigby posted on X: “One MP messages me to tell me PM ‘has gone for it and smashed it’ Says he ‘was honest and a bit raw’ but adds lots of MPs ‘desperately want him to succeed’.

And BBC New’s Harry Farley reports that one Labour MP, who is often critical of the prime minister, texted him from inside: “If we could bottle this Keir and show it to the country we’ll walk [the next general election].”

Culture secretary Lisa Nandy, who we hadn’t heard from when Andy rounded up cabinet members rallying around Keir Starmer earlier (see here and here), came out in support of the PM a few hours ago. She wrote on X:

We were elected just eighteen months ago to fundamentally change this country and improve lives after more than a decade of decline.

The Prime Minister is right to take that obligation seriously and he has my full support as he works in difficult circumstances to deliver.

She’s also told the BBC that she “strongly disagrees” with Anas Sarwar after the Scottish Labour leader called for Starmer’s resignation earlier today.

Nandy said Starmer had “made a mistake” in appointing Peter Mandelson as ambassador, which he is “right to have owned up to” and apologised for. She said the Epstein files have showed that the country is in desperate need of change, adding:

We will go out and do the job that we were elected to do … we are all fully behind the prime minister.

Health secretary Wes Streeting has shared some of his private messages with Peter Mandelson with Sky News’s Beth Rigby in an effort to challenge allegations that he and the disgraced former US ambassador were close.

In an interview on the Electoral Dysfunction podcast (here’s a clip), Streeting said of the exchanges, which date back to August 2024 and cover a mix of personal and political matters:

Yeah, so this is the stuff that is going to be covered by the parliamentary inquiry. I’m happy for you to publish them. I’m happy for people to look at them and I’m happy to answer questions about them. I’ve got nothing to hide.

Streeting denied that his relationship with Mandelson was “intimate” and asked if he was embarrassed by the messages, which show that the pair spoke every few weeks, he said:

I’m embarrassed to have known Peter Mandelson.

The messages show that in March last year Streeting told Mandelson that he feared being “toast at the next election” in his Ilford North seat.

He also said that there was no “clear answer” as to why people should vote for Labour and after Mandelson complained about the government’s approach on the economy, Streeting said that the government had “no growth strategy at all”.

Also, in July Streeting asked Mandelson’s views on the UK formally recognising a Palestinian state. He said the UK should back recognition “morally and politically” and accused Israel of “committing war crimes before our very eyes”.

Mandelson also sent Streeting his statement after he was sacked by Keir Starmer, but Streeting didn’t reply.

Anas Sarwar has shown he has a ruthless streak. Once one of Keir Starmer’s staunchest cheerleaders and allies, the Scottish Labour leader is now the most senior party figure to call for him to quit.

Despite anger among his colleagues and criticism that his decision to demand Starmer stands down was “idiotic, immature and self-defeating”, Sarwar’s political calculation is blunt and uncompromising.

Sarwar and his advisers, having watched Scottish Labour’s polling figures plummet as the disarray inside the UK government deepened into chaos and then crisis, believe the risk of calling on Starmer to quit is justified.

Sarwar, by delivering a better result in Scotland at the 2024 general election – winning 35.3% of the vote compared with Labour’s 33.7% at UK level – managed to double his party’s support levels in a matter of months. That has now evaporated. Scottish Labour sits at 18% in the polls.

Scottish Labour’s leadership have been in crisis talks since the issue of Peter Mandelson’s ties to Jeffrey Epstein grew into a fully fledged scandal last week. But Sarwar’s call for Starmer to quit is freighted with risks.

If Starmer limps on in the lead-up to Scottish elections in May or Labour descends into civil war, Sarwar’s failure to deliver the coup de grace will be used by his opponents in a campaign to claim he is weak or, worse, ignored.

A successful outcome for Sarwar, such as it is, relies on Starmer quitting now. He needs Starmer to resign gracefully and with humility. And it would matter too who stands to replace him.

Sarwar’s allies may be gambling that a leadership contest will produce candidates that can rouse voters who have fled to Reform or the Greens to reconsider Labour, or at the very least, lance the boil they feel Starmer’s premiership has become.

However, voters may see this ruthlessness as the kind of betrayal they dislike in politicians; if they already felt let down by Labour, they may be utterly indifferent. It may simply be too late and too self-destructive.

Read Severin’s full analysis here:

The former head of Homes England has announced he is joining Reform UK, as Nigel Farage said he was planning to bring more “experts” on board to advise the party.

The move by Simon Dudley was also being framed as a blow for Kemi Badenoch after he had been brought into the Conservative party’s treasurers department as recently as October last year by party chairman Kevin Hollinrake.

Dudley, who comes with experience in international banking and held roles at HSBC and other companies, was chair of the Ebsfleet Development Corporation until July last year, overseeing the creation of a new town the size of Chichester.

“For too long, the two main parties have failed to deliver housing for Brits,” said Dudley. “They’ve pursued a disastrous combination of extreme levels of immigration with a severe lack of new good quality homes.”