How a Tory MP 37 years ago has inspired Catherine West’s ‘stalking horse’ leadership challenge to Starmer
TThe name Sir Anthony Meyer has become a minor footnote in political history, despite the former Tory MP playing a pivotal role in ending Margaret Thatcher’s premiership.
In 1989, the pro-EU Tory MP ran as a so-called “stalking horse candidate” for the Conservative Party leadership against Margaret Thatcher in a bid to undermine her firm hold on the party.
Although he won easily, he opened the door to the challenge that ended Michael Heseltine’s time in Downing Street a year later.
Now, 37 years later, Hornsey and Friern Barnet’s Labor MP Catherine West has become Labour’s equal to Meyer, but Labor MPs are unlikely to wait another year to get rid of Sir Keir Starmer.
The problem with Labor rules is that, unlike the Conservative Party, there is no longer a simple process for giving a vote of confidence in the leader.
In 1989 the Conservative Party had a similar problem, so a sneak horse candidate was needed. This was followed by rules allowing the 1922 Committee, representing Tory MPs, to hold a vote of confidence if a sufficient number of letters were received.
However, a full leadership race needs to be launched with the Labor Party. 83 MPs are required to nominate a candidate. This is a laborious process and requires the leader’s potential rivals to take great personal risk.
This is one of the reasons why Labor has been so weak at removing incumbent prime ministers or leaders generally, even as it heads towards catastrophic defeat.
Gordon Brown, whom Sir Keir put in place to save his premiership, knows this very well after the plotters who wanted to replace him with former foreign secretary David Miliband lost their courage in 2009.
But what Ms. West actually did was allow the big monsters to enter a contest without initiating it themselves.
It means Health Secretary Wes Streeting and former deputy chancellor Angela Rayner, who are both ready to launch a leadership bid, can now throw their hats in the ring without being accused of disloyalty or being a knife-wielding Brutus figure.
As things progress next week, it will be interesting to see if they are willing to make the leap.
But even before Ms. West made the announcement, there were those who wanted the defense minister, Al Carns, a former Royal Marines commander, to be a stalking horse.
The problem was that Mr. Carns thought he could win and didn’t want to open the door for others to try.
Ms West will not be Labor leader and prime minister, but her actions this weekend make it almost certain that Sir Keir will be replaced before the summer.
