How the Downing Street machine ensured Starmer survived to fight another day | The Guardian |
As officials began processing Allan's departure, it became clear Sarwar was going to make a major intervention. At around 12.45pm, he announced an unexpected press conference in Glasgow. He confirmed in a call with Starmer that he would use it to call for his departure.
Downing Street officials started making calls.
Led by Cuthbertson and Amy Richards, Starmer's political director, his aides began calling ministers to gauge their loyalty, beginning at cabinet level. Ministers were given a form of words they should use to make their support clear.
Stuart Ingham, Starmer's director of strategic interventions, and Sophie Nazemi, his press secretary, pitched in. Jonathan Reynolds, the chief whip, David Lammy, the justice secretary, and Rachel Reeves, the chancellor, added some cabinet heft to the operation.
Varun Chandra, Starmer's business adviser, began speaking to business leaders to talk about how disruptive a change of prime minister could be for the UK economy.
One business leader said: "The last thing we need at the moment is the chaos of a leadership election or uncertainty about who is going to be our prime minister. The UK has just about got things under control and the world stage is a turbulent place."
Peter Mandelson, Jonathan Ashworth, Yvette Cooper and Wes Streeting at the Labour party conference in Liverpool, 2023. (Photo: Matt Crossick/Empics Entertainment)
Starmer's advisers worried Sarwar's announcement would be a prelude to resignations by other ministers, culminating in that of Wes Streeting, the health secretary, one of the prime minister's most likely successors.
Their concerns were not helped by the sight of Streeting dashing across the atrium of Portcullis House, parliament's modern annexe, followed by a period of silence from him on social media.
Other senior ministers had begun posting their support for the prime minister, most of them focusing on the mandate he had won at the election less than two years ago and the importance of "delivering the change this country voted for".
Streeting, it turned out, had been recording an episode of the Electoral Dysfunction podcast for Sky News, during which he gave his own endorsement of the prime minister. "Keir Starmer doesn't need to resign," he said. "Give Keir a chance."
Angela Rayner, another potential challenger, added her own support. "I urge all my colleagues to come together, remember our values and put them into practice as a team," she posted on X.
In Downing Street, there was a collective sigh of relief. The putsch had not arrived and the prime minister lived to fight another day.
That evening, Starmer addressed a packed room of MPs in Westminster at a previously planned meeting of the parliamentary Labour party.
"I've won every fight I've been in," he told them. "As I have breath in my body, I'll be in that fight, on behalf of the country that I love and I believe in."
The last man standing, a former barrister ...
