Keir Starmer swept to power in 2024 with a landslide parliamentary majority. Less than two years later, his aides are counting whether enough of his own MPs still back him to survive the week.

The number that matters is 81 — the threshold of Labour parliamentarians needed to trigger a formal leadership contest. According to The Independent, backbencher Catherine West has already secured commitments from roughly 70 colleagues and is prepared to move if Starmer’s make-or-break reset speech on Monday fails to land.

The election that broke the mandate

The catalyst was last week’s local and regional elections — the largest set of votes since Starmer’s general election victory. The verdict was devastating. Labour lost nearly 1,500 council seats across England, was ejected from government in Wales after 27 years of continuous dominance, and recorded its worst-ever Scottish Parliament result with just 17 of 129 seats.

The principal beneficiary was Nigel Farage’s Reform UK, which gained more than 1,300 seats, sweeping through working-class communities in northern England that had been Labour territory for generations. Farage declared the results a “historic change in British politics,” telling AP News he was confident that voters who had come to Reform “are not doing it as a short-term protest.”

The results reflect a broader fragmentation. The Greens won hundreds of seats in urban centres. Plaid Cymru took the most seats in Wales. Tony Travers, professor of government at the London School of Economics, told AP News the outcome suggests no party will win a majority at the next national election, due by 2029.

A party at war with itself

Roughly 40 Labour MPs have publicly called for Starmer to resign or set a departure timetable. The internal mechanics are frantic and contradictory.

West’s “stalking horse” challenge is designed to flush out other contenders, but it has disrupted the plans of more established figures. Health Secretary Wes Streeting is widely reported to be preparing a leadership bid — one ally told The Guardian: “Wes isn’t going to challenge Keir but he is preparing in case it all falls apart” — though he does not want to be seen firing the first shot.

Former Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner, who resigned last September after it emerged she had failed to pay the correct stamp duty on a property purchase, issued a sweeping left-wing policy ultimatum on Sunday. She warned that Labour was “in danger of becoming a party of the well-off, not working people” and added: “What we are doing isn’t working, and it needs to change. This may be our last chance.” An HMRC investigation into her tax affairs remains unresolved, according to the BBC.

Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham is regarded by many as the strongest potential leader, but he is not currently an MP and would need to enter Parliament before standing. His supporters have been trying to slow West’s challenge, with one MP telling The Guardian the intervention was “like one of those free-running horses at the Grand National.”

The reset that must work

Starmer will attempt to stop the bleeding on Monday. Pre-released excerpts promise that “incremental change won’t cut it” and pledge to define his government by “putting Britain at the heart of Europe” through closer EU ties on the economy, trade, and defence. He has also brought back former Prime Minister Gordon Brown as a special envoy on global finance and former deputy leader Harriet Harman as an adviser on women and girls.

Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson defended Starmer on Sunday, conceding voters had given Labour a “real kicking” but arguing that removing him would be wrong. A cabinet source offered a bleaker assessment to The Guardian: “There is a residual loyalty to Keir but the cabinet are at end of their tether.”

The incumbents’ curse

Britain’s turmoil fits a wider pattern. Incumbent governments across Europe have been punished by voters squeezed by stagnant living standards, immigration pressures, and the economic fallout from successive crises. AP News noted that the economy “lies at the heart of Labour’s troubles, as it does for many incumbent governments.” The difficulty is compounded by self-inflicted wounds, including Starmer’s widely criticized appointment of Peter Mandelson, described by AP as “a scandal-tarnished friend of Jeffrey Epstein,” as ambassador to Washington.

Stephen Houghton, outgoing leader of Barnsley Council in northern England, where Labour lost to Reform, told AP the problem “goes deeper than the prime minister.” He said: “This has been coming for 30 years around the country, in post-industrial communities, coastal communities, that have been left behind. You can change prime ministers all day long. If you don’t change policy, it’s not going to change.”

That diagnosis applies well beyond Britain. Whether Starmer gets the chance to test it depends on a speech he delivers Monday morning — and whether his own party is still listening.

Sources