By Elizabeth Piper, Andrew MacAskill and Sarah Young
LONDON, May 12 (Reuters) – Prime Minister Keir Starmer defied calls to resign on Tuesday, telling ministers he would “get on with governing” despite a “destabilising” 48 hours of growing calls to set out a timetable for his departure after a drubbing in local elections.
At a meeting of his cabinet, Starmer, in the top job for less than two years, repeated that, while he took responsibility for one of his Labour Party’s worst election defeats, there had been no official move to trigger a leadership contest. Several loyal ministers expressed their support for him.
It was the latest pledge from Starmer to press on with a premiership that has been dogged by scandal and policy U-turns since he won a large majority at a national election in 2024. On Monday, he promised to be bolder in tackling the problems besetting Britain to try to shore up his political future.
BORROWING COSTS RISE
In a nod to an increase in borrowing costs on the markets over fears of another bout of political instability in Britain, Starmer said the “past 48 hours have been destabilising for government and that has a real economic cost for our country and for families”.
“The Labour Party has a process for challenging a leader and that has not been triggered,” Starmer told his cabinet, according to his Downing Street office.
“The country expects us to get on with governing. That is what I am doing and what we must do as a cabinet.”
Leaving Downing Street, several senior ministers offered Starmer their support, with pensions minister Pat McFadden telling reporters that no one had challenged the prime minister at cabinet.
Others who are thought to want Starmer to go, including health minister Wes Streeting and interior minister Shabana Mahmood, either left without comment or did not leave via Downing Street, where reporters were gathered.
Some of those Labour lawmakers calling for Starmer to announce his departure had hoped a senior minister might quit to force the issue.
Keeping up the pressure, several more Labour lawmakers, including a junior minister, called for his removal on Tuesday. More than 80 Labour lawmakers have publicly called for him to set a resignation date so the party could install a new leader in an orderly manner.
MUCH-PROMISED STABILITY EVAPORATES
It was a long way from when Starmer first became Labour leader in 2020, inheriting the party after its worst national election showing since 1935 under his predecessor, veteran left-winger Jeremy Corbyn.
He was then seen as a safe pair of hands able to drag Labour more towards the centre ground.
At the 2024 election, he won one of the largest majorities in modern British history for Labour with an offer of stability after years of chaos under the Conservatives, who oversaw five prime ministers in eight years and left, what his government called a “black hole” in the public finances.
Now, he is fighting for his political survival.
Bond markets have been sensitive to any suggestion that Starmer and his finance minister Rachel Reeves could go.
Investors are worried that a more left-wing replacement would push for more spending at a time when Britain’s finances are already stretched, with borrowing costs the highest among the Group of Seven advanced economies.
HARD TO REMOVE LABOUR PM
“I can’t see how he gets through the day,” one Labour lawmaker told Reuters on the condition of anonymity. “If we’re on 70-odd now, the number who think he should go but haven’t gone public is easily double that.”
It is generally harder for Labour lawmakers to remove a prime minister than the opposition Conservative Party. While dozens of Labour lawmakers might have expressed their dissatisfaction with Starmer, 81 of them need to rally behind one single candidate to trigger a contest.
Of those who have called for him to go, about half of them are on the left of the party, while just over a quarter are more centrist, according to a Reuters tally. That would suggest there is no one candidate who commands the numbers yet.
Jenny Chapman, a junior minister in the foreign office, said the majority of Labour’s 403 lawmakers “don’t want the chaos”.
Removing Starmer now – or forcing him to set a departure date – would likely favour health minister Wes Streeting, who is in a position to move first. His supporters say Streeting, who hails from the right of the party, would be a better communicator than Starmer.
Other possible challengers, Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham and former Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner face obstacles to running, both seen as favourites of the moderate left of the party.
Burnham does not have the seat in parliament he needs to mount a challenge and Rayner has yet to fully resolve the tax issues that prompted her resignation from office last year.
(Reporting by Elizabeth Piper and Sarah Young; additional reporting by William James and Alistair Smout; editing by William James, Alex Richardson and Kate Holton)
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