Starmer's make or break speech: Will it save him?

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0:35As soon as you're into make or break speech territory, it's always break. That hurts. In the speech is a start. I think people don't want words, they want evidence of action. If he wanted a square fight, you know, go and choose a reform seat. I think you've got to be a bit careful about changing a leader. You can't fatten the pig on market day. If Wes has the numbers, he will go for it today. The election results last week were tough. Very tough. We lost some brilliant Labour representatives. That hurts. And it should hurt. I get it. I feel it. And I take responsibility. But does he? Does he get it?

1:21Does he feel it? And does he really take responsibility? More importantly, can he convince his party and the country that he does? This was billed as a make-or-break moment for the Keir Starmer premiership. But no sooner had he sat down that more Labour MPs were calling for him to go. Is it already all over for Keir Starmer? Welcome to The News Agents.

1:53It's Maitlis. It's Lewis and the Prime Minister waited the weekend to give a vision to his MPs of how he intended to respond to that shellacking that we saw last week, where in so many places across the country, the Labour Party was destroyed, was completely wiped out at local government level. He said that he would not walk away from what he described as the battle for Britain's soul. But as I said, almost as soon as he had sat down, we had more Labour MPs saying that in one form or another, they felt that the Prime Minister ought to step down or at the very least ought to set out a timetable for his resignation.

2:41And at the time of recording, just gone two o 'clock on Monday afternoon, more than 50 Labour MPs of just over 400 had in some way indicated that they wanted him to go. And I think before we get into the specifics, we should just take a step back here because there had been a lot of received wisdom which had said that, yes, the results were going to be really bad. But, you know, the Labour Party often pulls away from these things. what we are watching is historically almost unprecedented really the Labour Party we've got very used to chopping and changing and you know conservative governments changing changing their leaders this is something that the Labour Party has not really ever done certainly for about 90 years or so it never changes its leaders via direct confrontation sometimes over time they're slowly pressured out bit by bit but for us to basically see a conservative style push particularly for not just a Labour leader but for a Labour Prime Minister.

3:39Yes, it's happening slowly, bit by bit. Yes, it's happening gingerly in that very Labour formalistic way but it is happening and it is highly, highly, historically speaking, unusual. Yeah, I mean, when we went home on Friday night there was a chance that everything could happen over the course of the weekend or nothing could happen until Monday morning and I think what started to change the balance was this MP Catherine West to very few people, frankly, outside the party or possibly in, knew that well, who said, I'm going to be, she didn't call herself the stalking horse, but she essentially said, I will stand for the leadership.

4:16The cabinet needs to grow some, you know, balls. Sign this letter if you want him to go, which was what gave the speech this morning this extra sort of sense of, you know, do or die, kind of, are you going to survive this or is it going to be all over? And I think Catherine West's tweet, her sort of message, her clarion call basically changed the dynamic of that speech this morning. And it turned it into something that really meant everyone was looking to see whether Starmer would absolutely sort of nail it, reinvent, reinvigorate. And the extraordinary thing was it was incredibly similar to every other speech I think he's ever made.

5:01He started by saying stories beat spreadsheets, but we didn't get real stories and we didn't get spreadsheets. We did hear him say he took responsibility a lot, but it didn't kind of take us onto new ground. And I thought the extraordinary thing was it was like somebody, a good friend had pulled him aside and said, right, Keir, this is no time for incrementalism. We've got that. And Keir's going, yeah, got that. This is no time for small ideas. We need bold ideas. You got that? Yeah, got that. We need to place Labour right at the heart of Europe. You got that? Yeah. And instead of kind of turning that into an action or a move or just a beautiful piece of rhetoric, he just stood up and said, this is no time for inter-imensionalism and we need to be bolder and we need to place Labour at the heart of Britain at the heart of Europe.

5:57and you're still kind of sitting there scratching your head going, yeah, where? Well, where? You know, where is the thing? Where is the move? Where is the bold? Where is the... And then he sort of fell back onto what he quite often does, which is the why. I think we're past why. You know, people want to know why their living standards are lower. No, they don't. They get why. We don't need to hear about Covid. We don't need to hear about the war in Ukraine. We don't need to hear about Ukraine. We want to hear about what's going to change now, now, now. the urgency, the change, the move, the big, massive idea that is going to get us to the next place.

6:31And I think that was still missing from the speech. And so anyone who said afterwards, oh, that really, yeah, kind of really sorted things out, I honestly think was kind of kidding themselves. Yeah, I think the Prime Minister made two big mistakes over the course of the last 72 hours. One was to allow the sort of speculation about this speech to build up. You know, as soon as you're into make or break speech territory, it's always break, nearly always break. Certainly for most politicians, certainly really, I'm afraid for Keir Starmer, because it's very hard to see what in one speech Keir Starmer could have said about himself or about what he intends to do that we didn't already know.

7:08You know, he's been around for a long time. We know who he is. He can't change overnight. You know, we don't need to hear the family background anymore. Yeah, indeed. You know, these are these are well sung songs. Yeah, this is now about the country, right? Yeah. And look, and this was a speech also aimed squarely, I think, let's be honest, it wasn't at the country, it was at the Labour Party and it was at Labour MPs. Now it's about his internal survival right now. So perhaps that isn't surprising. but you know the thing about this speech was is that in a way it was classic Kistama in that he said the sort of crux of the speech was to say that what we really need is an argument an argument to take both to Nigel Farage and to Zapolansky something around which the whole the Labour Party can cohere and can understand that this is what we're about and take that argument to the country no one in the Labour Party would disagree with that it's something that the Labour Party has been yearning for, crying out for, deeply desirous of.

8:06The Prime Minister identified that an argument was needed and then proceeded not to provide any argument at all. The argument was that we need an argument. The Labour Party already knew that. What they wanted was what the argument, the actual argument itself. And I think that, you know, if you go back to, as you said, Emily, you know, if you go back to the three things that the Prime Minister identified as sort of part of the change that he is saying is needed, Well, he talked about, said that they're going to nationalise British steel. OK, it's true to say that when that was taken into public ownership, that was one of the more popular things the Labour government has done.

8:40Of course, it doesn't in the long term really explain what's going to happen to that asset and how it's going to be made profitable and so on. But sure, as you say, he said that he would take the Labour Party to the heart of Europe. But he didn't explain how. Because, of course, again, it circles back to that thing, which is to say, he says no more incrementalism. within the confines of his red lines, which he put in the Labour manifesto. I'm not saying they're wrong, by the way, but they are the red lines that are there. All that can be done is incremental, technical, instrumental change. I mean, to be fair, he talked specifically about the youth mobility scheme, about giving young people the chance to work and study and live in Europe.

9:19And so I guess, you know, that is something he can point to and say, I'm going to do that. But that is not, I mean, that's great. And, you know, I don't think there's any young person in Britain or Europe that would kind of diss that as a great move. But it doesn't actually get us to the big question, which is our growth has massively suffered as a result of Brexit. And that's not going to move the dial fundamentally on opening up businesses to trade. It's not helping us with the immigration problem, which has gone up since Brexit. It's not helping us sort of staff our hospitals, which has gone down since Brexit.

9:55and it's not helping us grow as a country, right? So, you know, yeah, maybe you're right. You know, he's not going to go anywhere near the red lines. But actually, there's many in his party who are desperate to hear him go, sod the red lines. I got that wrong. Although a lot in the red wall, I think, who would be deeply, deeply suspicious of the idea. Because, you know, is the Labour Party's response to what we just saw, where Nigel Farage is on the march again, to turn around and go, OK, well, what we need to do is reopen. Well, actually, one thing I think he did get right was he attached blame to Farage in a way that they haven't done properly.

10:27That was probably the strongest part of the speech. It was the strongest bit. Like, if you remind people in the Red Wall that Farage told you Brexit would make you richer and it didn't, if you remind people that Farage said it would bring down immigration and it didn't, like, one of the problems that they've had, frankly, is not pinning Brexit firmly enough onto Farage and his new incarnation, the Reform Party, strongly or often enough. I mean, that is a kind of a really silly schoolboy error that they could have avoided because, yes, people are in the kind of red wall saying we feel terrible.

11:00Well, of course you feel terrible. Of course things have got worse. It's got worse for all the reasons that you were told it would after Brexit. Well, I mean, I absolutely agree that that argument has not been made sufficiently strongly. And it was the strongest part of the speech because, ironically enough, that was the bit where the prime minister was taking his own advice, providing a story, providing an argument and speaking in the sorts of primary colours that his opponents do. The problem is, is that that has happened, as you say, Emily, all too infrequently up to now. Now, as Linton Crosby, the great conservative strategist, used to say, you can't fatten the pig on market day.

11:33And you've got to make those arguments for a long time before you get to the point where you're able to offer. Not do or die day. Exactly. Quite so. Exactly. And I think that where we are now, I think, in terms of kind of what the prime minister is saying is he's right in that he identifies. He absolutely correctly identifies that politics in the late 2020s is different. it's different to anything that we've seen before or certainly for a long time it is absolutely a fight among those who would seek to change the character of our democracy and who certainly speak i think it's fair to say again in in primary colors he's right again that the stakes are very high and that he's right that if those stakes is the labor party or if you might for want of a better expression mainstream parties don't win that fight we could be going down a very dark path But ironically enough, in setting it out in that way, he has reminded his own MPs of precisely the reason why so many are minded to remove him, because they do not think.

12:34They agree with the analysis entirely, but they don't agree with the diagnosis that he is the man to fight that fight. That precisely because of the contours of this of this problem, precisely because the stakes are so high and Labour MPs are terrified about all this. They're terrified if they lose the battle over the next 24 to 36 months, that we don't just see a conservative prime minister, you know, the old sort of pendulum swings back. Do you see something completely different? Do you see Nigel Farage walking up Downing Street? And in reminding MPs of just how high those stakes are, he is in fact reminding them that he, of all people, might not be the person to take the fight to them.

13:11And you can hear this sort of rehearse, this argument again and again. And Angela Rayner, who, of course, is one of the potential candidates for that job or for Keir Starmer's job. She happened to be speaking at the CWU union conference today. And we can only prove we mean our Labour values by putting the common interest ahead of factionalism. And we can start by accepting that Andy Burnham should never have been blocked. It was a mistake that the leadership of our party should put right. So she has said what many in the party, certainly on the Burnham wing, have long thought privately, which is that Keir's big mistake was to stop Burnham from standing.

13:55And in that Gordon and Denton by-election, which might have saved it from the Greens, which would certainly have allowed Andy Burnham a place from which to then take on Keir directly for the leadership. I have to say that there are people who are not on the Burnham wing who think this is preposterous, who think this idea that Andy Burnham sort of deserves some safe seat, you know, deserves to have somebody step down for him is ridiculous. And that actually, if he wanted a square fight, you know, go and choose a reform seat. If you think you can do it, go into a part of the country where they don't necessarily vote Labour and try your mettle there.

14:33So I think we are at a place now where, just to kind of bring you up today, we're reading the runes. Andy Burnham obviously cannot make any move because he does not yet have a seat in Parliament. Angela Rayner is a big fan of Burnham, is encouraging Burnham to go for it probably at a sort of at a controlled pace, right, which feels like a sort of September, October time. Catherine West saying the same thing. then there are the people who actually really want to see something now and they also don't particularly want to see burnham and they would be sort of pro-west streeting and there has been a big debate over the last 24 hours about whether west streeting would if you like go over the top say if i don't do this today then my chance is gone and i know some people have been contacting me and saying if wes has the numbers he will go for it today he will push himself up there because this is his only chance before Burnham gets back in.

15:31And while Keir is looking wounded to say, right, damn, we're just going to go for it and do it. I've been told in the last hour, it's very unlikely now that Wes would stand, right? It looks increasingly like he wants to play the loyalist. He doesn't think that there's a time to do it just before the King's speech. and what you see now is all the build-up from the Catherine West list possibly just kind of quietly going back to where it was at least until the King's speech has happened the parliamentary, the sort of setting out of policy for the government happens on Wednesday Yeah, I think that's exactly right I think that's precisely where we are I think that the feeling is that look, Wes Streeting, if he wants to try and seize the premiership then the argument goes that there's not going to be a better time than now.

16:22Right. Because if you wait then Burnham will find somehow will find his way back into Parliament. You can see there is clearly a concerted off effort by the soft left of the Labour Party that is being orchestrated I'm told from the very highest levels of parts of the Labour government and that one way or the other there are now the difference between now and the last time he tried is that Starmer is that much weaker and Labour MPs are that bit much more scared. They've got the results to show for it. That's the spreadsheet that he was talking about. Correct. And therefore that the sort of analogy, the closest analogy is this is a sort of Conservative 2019 moment where Andy Burnham is Boris Johnson.

17:03You've basically got a deeply unpopular prime minister and you need someone who is perceived to be from the outside with not much association with that government's problems and demerits who can genuinely come in, provide a sense of insurgency and say, I am fresh, I am new, I am different. And only Burnham can do that. So if you wait for that to happen and they are going to try, come hell or high water to make it happen, then your position, Streeting, is lost because there's no way you win with the members. The downside, of course, is, as you say, Emily, that the worry for Streeting is that he ends up in a position where he's considered to have been disloyal, that he's not forgiven.

17:38And more importantly still, if he stands now, Rainer, who clearly would prefer to wait for Burnham to come in and stand, will feel compelled to stand against him. And at that moment, all bets are off. At that moment, it becomes a proper, hugely factional, bloody civil war for the control of the Labour Party. Where, by the way, you can't even guarantee for sure that Starmer himself won't stand in that ensuing Labour leadership election. Because he has told us that he's not going anywhere for 10 years. And he'll try and do what Corbyn did when he was challenged by his MPs, which is to take his case directly to Labour Party members, of whom, frankly, at this point, because the Labour Party has stopped telling us, we don't even know how many of them there are now.

18:19So that constituency would then be deciding, or that electorate, selectorate, would be deciding the fate, potentially, in a three-way contest between Reina, Streeting, who knows, maybe even Starmer, that it would be chaos. And I think there are a lot of Labour MPs and what Streeting will be thinking is, will Labour MPs and members forgive me if I ignite and start that process? Yeah, a process of chaos just before Wednesday. So in a weird way, having started this week thinking this could be make or break for Starmer. I don't think that's down to zero, but I think it is possible that actually this is a week where all the turmoil is under the water and actually nothing happens on the surface.

19:00and Keir Starmer is still in the job, possibly until, you know, any further move from an MP standing down in a seat that Burnham might want actually happens. Because, of course, there's no guarantee now that Andy Burnham wins a seat, right? No. I mean, we're looking for the Labour parts of the country and there aren't that many left. I mean, that would have been a gutsy move for Starmer today, would have been to say, well, hint at the idea that he would allow him to do so. But, of course, where he stands... Yeah, try Wales. Let's try absolutely anyway, indeed. So I think what is changing, though, I agree.

19:34I mean, we might end up in a weird, classic kind of like Westminster media kind of flurry kind of way where we get to the end of the week and maybe things feel like they're going back to the status quo ante. I do think, though, something is changing, which is, I think, as a result of what we're seeing today over the weekend, I think it is becoming clearer and clearer that Starmer's authority over the parliamentary Labour Party is now ebbing to a point where it is clearly just not sustainable. even in the short to medium term. I mean, when I saw today... And he, I guess, would say, you've got a list there of 50 people who are standing against me and I've got 300-odd who don't need to come out because they are supporting me.

20:11I mean, I know. These things are on a knife edge and you're loyal until suddenly you're not, right? Well, yes, indeed. And I think you know for a fact that if 50 are public, then you can probably at least triple that number with people who are on the Ministerial Payroll and others who, if push came to shove and they were asked to declare, if they were forced to declare in a contest, It's different from sort of just sitting in the trenches. But if you're forced to go and fight and choose a side, then they will choose someone else. I mean, when I saw today that Chris Curtis, who has been a Starmerite, a Starmer loyalist, who's chair of the Labour Growth Group, which comprise of 100 MPs, says that Starmer had to go and there needs to be a change of leadership.

20:45I thought that that was, that is someone who is not a usual suspect and is a reasonably, I would say, median member, particularly of the kind of 2024 intake, which is a very large intake. When I saw that, I thought that is just a straw in the wind and indicator of a wider trend, which is just showing that we get to the end of this week. And although Starmer might still be in place, it really feels to me now like his days are numbered in office. Let's just hear Chris Curtis. I should start by saying, as I think many of my colleagues have said today, that I have immense respect for the prime minister.

21:15The decisive election victory that he gave us, his response, for example, over the war in Iran. But I think the moment, the dramatic situation that we face, the geopolitical context, the fact that we had such a difficult economic inheritance does mean that we need more radical change than the government has set out so far. I don't think we saw a plan from the prime minister this morning in order to implement the kind of change that this country needs. And I therefore think it's time for us to look for new leadership. And I think what that means is the Prime Minister rightly now setting out a timetable and an orderly process for a leadership election and one in which Labour has a discussion about the vision for the country and what changes we think are needed in order to face the very real challenges that Britain currently faces.

22:06I mean, Chris Curtis has sat in that seat in previous podcasts and just talked about his loyalty for Starmer. But to your point about usual suspects, the point is that parts of the country going completely reform or green are throwing up people who weren't usual suspects and now are. I mean, over the weekend we heard from Josh Simons, who was a minister until he had to resign from, you know, as he'll admit, his own mistakes with the Labour Together group. And he's basically, you know, he's an MP for Makerfield who's now saying they're coming for me. If we don't change, they're coming for me. There are very few people, I guess, in the Labour Party who don't have that inner fear.

22:48They're coming for me if I don't do something now. As I say, I think it comes down to a lot of Labour MPs. they agree with the Prime Minister, they know that it can't be incremental, they agree with him that they don't need spreadsheets, they need a story, but they see a man and a leader who... Who just says that. Well, and it is more spreadsheet than story, and whose whole politics, fundamentally, is incremental improvement. And he himself has set that challenge, set that yardstick that he probably can't meet. When we come back, we're going to be speaking to a big power player within the Labour Party, Mayor Sadiq Khan, Mayor of London, of course, who is marking his 10th year in office, And certainly, I think, wondering whether or not Keir Starmer will get to that same objective that he set himself of getting to 10 years as Prime Minister.

23:31Stay with us.

23:38From a range of trusted voices and award-winning journalists. Good morning, I'm Nick Ferrari. It's time to get to your calls. Find out the latest news and hear every side of the story. So just as I take responsibility for the results, I also take responsibility for delivering the change that we promised for a stronger and fairer Britain that we must build. Now he's still toast. He's just wasting our time now. The words of two in a growing list of Labour MPs whose patience with the Prime Minister has run dry. Is there anything he said or can say to make you want him to stay? Listen on our free Global Player app or the LBC app.

24:14LBC. Leading Britain's conversation.

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25:25Well, joining us now from Cue is Sir Sadiq Khan, the London Mayor, a man who has been at the helm of that job now for 10 years. Sadiq Khan, just tell us what you made of the Prime Minister's speech today, because many in your party began this week by calling it Make or Break. Well, first, it's important to acknowledge, and I think Keir did today, how bad the results were for Labour on Thursday. Great Labour councillors lost their seats through no fault of their own, the town hall or city hall, but ostensibly because voters in London, Scotland, Wales and most of England are unhappy, frustrated, disappointed with the pace of delivery from the Labour government.