Pressure intensified on U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer after a Labour lawmaker warned she may trigger a formal leadership contest following the party’s heavy local election losses.
By yourNEWS Media Newsroom
U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer is facing growing internal unrest within the Labour Party after one of his own MPs warned that a formal leadership challenge could be launched as early as Monday if senior Cabinet members fail to act.
Labour MP Catherine West said she is prepared to begin organizing support for a leadership contest following Labour’s major setbacks in local elections held Thursday across the United Kingdom.
Speaking to the BBC, West said she was putting Starmer’s Cabinet “on notice” and called for party leadership figures to step forward immediately.
“I’m putting people on notice — if I don’t hear by Monday morning of some leadership hopefuls, I will be asking everybody in the Parliamentary Labour Party to put a name against my name, because we need to get this ball rolling,” West said.
She also suggested an internal transition arrangement in which Starmer would step aside for another role rather than remain party leader.
“But my preferred option is for the Cabinet to do a reshuffle within itself, where there’s plenty of talent and for Keir to be given a different role, which he might enjoy, perhaps an international role, and then for others to come to the fore, who can communicate the message, who are very able, so we can have minimum fuss,” she added.
West, who previously served as a junior Foreign Office minister, would need the support of 20% of Labour MPs — equivalent to 81 members of Parliament — in order to formally trigger a leadership contest under party rules.
According to her comments, roughly 10 MPs are already backing the effort, and she expressed confidence additional lawmakers would join if no alternative challenger emerges from within the Cabinet.
The unrest follows a damaging round of local elections in which Labour reportedly lost approximately 1,400 seats nationwide while Nigel Farage’s Reform UK made substantial gains across several regions, according to GB News.
Starmer publicly accepted responsibility for the electoral losses but rejected calls to resign.
“I’m not going to walk away and plunge the country into chaos,” Starmer said following the results.
Despite those remarks, reports indicated the prime minister has not definitively ruled out a managed leadership transition, and he is expected to address the situation publicly on Monday.
By late Friday, at least 22 Labour MPs had publicly called either for Starmer to resign or to provide a timetable for his departure, according to BBC reporting.
West acknowledged that Labour currently lacks a clearly defined successor candidate.
“I don’t have a candidate,” she said. “That’s part of the problem.”
“But I think there are several people who would like to do it, who have been planning for months, but I’m very surprised that none of them has popped up today to say ‘I will do it,’” she added.
The growing rebellion inside Labour comes amid mounting political pressure on the governing party following disappointing electoral results and increasing momentum for opposition parties ahead of future national contests.
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