Stubborn Starmer defies Labour plotters - The Latest

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0:10I've been speaking to ministers subsequently, including in the Cabinet, who say this is beginning to look like an orchestrated campaign. Where's Streeting? Do you want to be Prime Minister? Should Where's Streeting decide to go for it? If Andy Burnham isn't in a position to run, that the soft left will coalesce around at least one other leading figure. And whether that's Ed Miliband, whether that's Angela Rayner, I think it's getting increasingly hard to find anybody, even in his top team, that thinks Keir Starmer will definitely last until the next election. Ministers resign after Keir Starmer tells his cabinet he's not stepping down as prime minister, despite more than 80 MPs calling for him to go.

0:44How much longer has he got? From The Guardian's today in Focus, this is The Latest with me, Lucy Hoth. Well, joining me is Pippa Krira, our political editor. Pippa, thank you for joining us on a very, very busy and tense day. Normally, we would ask our political correspondents and editors to go about 15 minutes up some flights of stairs in Westminster, but it's too busy a day for that. So you're in the Guardian office. Let's start with the ministerial resignations that we've had, three of them today against Keir Starmer. How significant and how damaging are they? So it's worth just saying, Lucy, that of course, all of this is against the backdrop of what happened yesterday.

1:20It's a very dramatic day at Westminster when dozens of Labour MPs publicly called for the Prime Minister to go to set out an orderly timetable for his departure, including some ministerial aides, but not ministers. And the biggest significance of what's happened this morning or today already is that we're now in the ministerial ranks. So three ministers, as you say, have gone. One of the Miata Fambula is of the soft left, an ally of Ed Miliband. And actually somebody we're told who had previously considered her position wasn't necessarily very happy with the way things were going. And it is the two subsequent resignations which are much more significant, really, in the context of everything that's happening here at Westminster.

2:02One of them, of course, Jess Phillips, a very well-known minister at Home Office. She was responsible for safeguarding and she sent a coruscating letter to the Prime Minister in which he said that he hadn't got a grip of the big challenges facing the country and he was being far too incremental in his delivery and that she felt that the party couldn't continue. Crucially, she is a close friend and ally of Wes Streeting. The third resignation, a woman called Alex Davies-Jones, Labour MP, who is also in the Home Office, said that she also didn't have faith in Keir Starmer's premiership. She is also an ally of Streeting.

2:36And at this point, I've been speaking to ministers subsequently, including in the Cabinet, who say this is beginning to look like an orchestrated campaign. Right. Well, all eyes on Wes, and particularly all eyes were on Wes in what sounds like quite a tense cabinet meeting this morning where Keir Starmer gave a kind of address, didn't he, without taking questions from ministers, effectively saying, let's get on with the job of governing. What do we know about the vibe in that room? Yeah, that's right. So Keir Starmer had a pre-planned cabinet meeting at 9am with his ministers, and he opened it by telling them that he's going to fight on as prime minister, saying that the threshold for a leadership challenge had not been met.

3:19He's, of course, right in that just because people are writing letters saying that they wanted him to go. There isn't a candidate. There isn't a contest. Those letters have to back one particular candidate, don't they? That's right. Rather than just a broad wanting to topple a leader. Yeah, and he made the point that the last 48 hours and all the speculation around his future has been incredibly destabilising for the government. And, of course, that has an economic cost because it has an impact on the markets and therefore has an impact on every, you know, people right across the country. So he made his opening statement.

3:45He said that if ministers wanted to come to talk to him one-to-one, they could do that later. And then the whole meeting moved on to talking about the Middle East and other issues that the government is dealing with. I'm told by sources in the room that Wes Streeting came in, acted entirely normally, despite all the speculation about whether he may or may not go over the top. One colleague described him as having a brass neck. Somebody else suggested that some of his colleagues are very angry because they feel that he is among those in the Labour movement, Labour Party, that's destabilised the prime minister and suggested that some ministers were giving evil eyes in his direction.

4:21So I should probably say that West Streeting has always said that you would run in a contest should somebody else initiate one, but that he didn't want to be the person to start it off, to kick it off himself. Whether that's changed over the last 24 hours, we just don't know. Yeah, and we are obviously waiting to hear whether he decides that now is the moment to move or not. As per your reporting, West Streeting reportedly requested a meeting with Keir Starmer after the cabinet meeting that Keir Starmer refused. Do we know who else he's been talking to this morning? We know that no other cabinet ministers had meetings with him before or after the cabinet, apart from Richard Hermer, the Attorney General, who is, of course, not just a close colleague, but a close friend of the prime minister.

5:06They started a legal career 30 years ago together, and he would have been seeking his counsel. We also know that the Downing Street operation has been bolstered, that yesterday David Lammy, the Deputy Prime Minister, Johnny Reynolds, the Chief Whip, were in there most of the day. I imagine they'll be spending some time in there today. And Darren Jones, who, of course, is the Prime Minister's Chief Secretary, has been heavily involved in all of this as well. So we've started seeing a bit of a Downing Street fight back, although really not on the scale that you might expect, given the precariousness of the Prime Minister's position and not replicating the sort of fight back we saw after Anna Sarwar, Labour's Scottish leader, called for Keir Starmer to go in February.

5:50Nevertheless, some ministers came out of that Cabinet meeting, went straight to the cameras outside Downing Street and said that they thought that Keir Starmer should stay in post. Privately, some of them add, not necessarily the ones talking to the camera, but others add, for now, I think it's getting increasingly hard to find anybody, even in his top team, that thinks Keir Stommer will definitely last until the next election. One person who didn't stop to talk to the press was Wes Streeting, who made a fairly rapid departure. What do we know about what he's weighing up about whether now is the right time to go?

6:23What sorts of conversations are his allies having, particularly given as two of his key allies have resigned today? Yeah, well, I do think, as I said, it's important to note that he's been quite open in recent weeks, including with the prime minister, we understand that should a contest arise, that he would want to run, that he's ambitious, that he sees himself as a future prime minister. The distinction he's always made, though, is that he's planning, not plotting. And some of his very close friends insist that he has not got an ops plan ready to press the button on, people ready to go into jobs.

6:58Necessarily, the number is required to trigger an official contest, 81, although I believe they feel that they could get the numbers should they decide to go over the top. But it's just increasingly feeling like it's too circumstantial that his closest allies, aides and ministers who are very much in his camp are standing down calling for the prime minister to stand down. As I said, we are expecting more resignations. It'd be really interesting to see who they might ally themselves with, what camp they're in. And of course, where's Streeting himself? Does he say anything? on the eve of the king's speech, when the prime minister's made it so clear that he wants to stay put?

7:38Do other cabinet ministers act? I mean, there's some speculation that, you know, some of those who are unhappy about Keir Starmer's position right now and think that a change needs to be made could themselves decide to either quit or to make public comments. I think it's really important that people look as much at who hasn't said anything publicly as to who has. But also crucially that West Streeting is to the right of the Labour Party and that if he did announce his decision to challenge Starmer, then it's being reported that someone like Ed Miliband of the soft left would challenge him. Right.

8:18Meanwhile, lots of questions about Andy Burnham, who has travelled, we understand, from Manchester on a train to Euston this morning. He was pictured getting off a train there. Presumably lots of people wanting to talk to him. But there is, of course, this issue about his return to Westminster, a search for a seat that he might run in. What are you hearing there? Well, we don't know why Andy Burnham is in London and what meetings he's having, whether he's meeting with Labour MPs, whether he's meeting with those on the green benches already who are supporting him, who are his fairly open backers.

8:53That's unclear. But we know what his ambitions are as well. The reality is that he can't trigger any contest himself because, as you say, he's not an MP. and even if he has identified a seat, and we've been obviously going around all of them and trying to find out which one it might be in the North West, there's no guarantee that he would get selected even if the opinion on Labour's ruling National Executive Committee, which blocked him last time, is softening. There's no guarantee that he would win a seat that he then was selected for, given reform success across the North West in the elections.

9:23And there's no guarantee that Labour MPs would come in behind him should he make it back to Westminster. I think it is really important, as you say, Lucy, to note that should Wes Streeting decide to go for it and decide to go for the leadership, that if Andy Burnham isn't in a position to run, that this off-left will coalesce around at least one other leading figure. And whether that's Ed Miliband, whether that's Angela Rayner, whether that's somebody like Louise Haig, who runs the Tribune group and so far has been fairly supportive of Andy Burnham, whether that is somebody like Lucy Powell, the deputy leader of the Labour Party, I mean, all those options are on the table.

9:56Lots of options on the table, Pippa, and I know you're in the middle of a very, very busy day. Thank you so much for your time. Thanks for having me. That's it for today. My huge thanks again to Pippa Creera, our political editor. You can keep up with her reporting and our lobby team over at theguardian.com, as well as our politics live blog. Before we go, I just wanted to tell you about a new video podcast that our New York office is launching. It's called Stateside with Kai and Carter, and it's hosted by our colleagues Kai Wright and Carter Sherman. Each week, they're going to be making sense of some of the biggest stories happening right now.

10:26The show will feature conversations with some of the smartest thinkers and reporters, not just from The Guardian, but across the world. It's launching on the 13th of May with episodes every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. You can find it in full video on YouTube and wherever you get your podcasts. Thanks for listening to this episode of The Latest. Today in Focus will be back in your feeds as usual tomorrow morning. The Latest will be back tomorrow night. This episode was presented by me, Lucy Hoff. It was produced by Sam Gruet. The senior producer was Bryony Moore. a lead producer with Zoe Hitch.

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