Have Labour MPs had enough?

In the middle of what has been a relatively successful week for the government, Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood’s asylum policy, ‘Restoring Order and Control’, was well received with little backlash from Labour MPs. It even gained endorsement from some opposition parties. But trouble was once again around the corner for the Prime Minister. 

Sir Keir Starmer, fresh from a bruising week marked by an internal briefing war that saw his leadership under ever-increasing pressure, gave an interview to the Daily Mirror on Monday evening, in which he insisted that he will lead the Labour Party into the next general election, adding that he was “utterly focused” on the cost of living.

However, his MPs may have other ideas. Labour MP for Norwich South, Clive Lewis, told the BBC's Politics Live on Wednesday that he was willing to step down from his seat to allow Andy Burnham, Mayor for Greater Manchester, to return to the House of Commons to challenge the Prime Minister for the Labour Party leadership, and put "country before party, party before personal ambition". There was a distinct echo of the language Starmer used while in opposition, regularly stressing that his agenda was about putting country first, party second. 

This followed a report from The Times stating that senior figures in the soft-left Tribune Group of Labour MPs claimed to have secured the 80 MPs required to challenge Starmer’s leadership. The group suggested that repeated crises and dire polling were unsustainable.

It is the stark nature of the polling in particular that is impossible to ignore. Lewis’ comments came at a time when the Prime Minister is increasingly unpopular with vast swathes of the electorate, forcing Labour MPs to reflect on what this means for their own electoral prospects. Ipsos polling highlights that only 13% are satisfied with the way Starmer is doing the job as Prime Minister, with 79% dissatisfied, a net rating of -66 – the lowest satisfaction rating recorded by Ipsos for any Prime Minister going back to 1977.

In addition to this, POLITICO reported that Mark Drakeford, the Welsh Labour finance minister, has said Starmer is polling even worse than former Prince Andrew. These comments appear to be referring to The National comparing two YouGov polls on “approval” for the Labour government and Andrew’s “popularity”, albeit slightly different metrics, but a comparison Starmer would prefer to avoid.

The scale of the government’s challenge at next week’s Budget was laid bare by a YouGov survey, which found that an extraordinary 0% of the public felt the British economy was in "a very good state". Only 4% of respondents believed that the UK's economy was in "a fairly good state". This tallies with an Ipsos poll for The Telegraph which found almost three quarters (71%) of the British public are dissatisfied with Rachel Reeves’ performance as Chancellor. 

Labour MPs appear to be taking inspiration from their Conservative predecessors and the plotting to replace Starmer is well underway; the only question now is when?