Starmer allies warn ditching Keir next week could land Britain with ‘Labour’s Liz Truss’ like Ed Miliband or Angela Rayner
Keir Starmer’s allies have warned that he could be replaced by ‘Labour’s Liz Truss if he is ousted in a chaotic leadership contest.
Labor MPs have been warned that sacking the Prime Minister after next week’s local elections could lead to the emergence of a disastrous Leftist like Ed Miliband or Angela Rayner.
The Prime Minister’s allies argue that a shift to the left could undermine the market’s confidence in the Government and send borrowing rates soaring, collapsing the economy.
A source told the Daily Mail: ‘If you flip a coin because you’re angry you could end up with chaos; This would be completely irresponsible for a party in power to do.
‘You could end up with Ed Miliband or Rayner and that would be the end of us. A Leftist Liz Truss with no real mandate would be the end of the Labor Party.’
Labor MPs are considering whether to dump Sir Keir after months of negative poll results.
Electoral expert Robert Hayward warned this week that the party was on course to lose three-quarters of the seats it defended in Thursday’s local elections, with up to 1,850 councilors losing their jobs.
The Labor Party, which has been in power in Wales since devolution, looks set to come third in the principality. The party is also trying to avoid a third-place finish in Scotland, where it once held hopes of finally unseating the SNP.
Thinking big: Ed Miliband among favorites to replace Sir Keir despite being rejected by British public in 2015
Some Labor MPs have launched an ‘Anyone but Ange’ campaign amid fears the Left’s agenda could spook markets
Keir Starmer’s allies fear Miliband or Rayner could incite the kind of chaos last seen when Liz Truss was Prime Minister
But MPs critical of Sir Keir are divided over who will replace him; This increases the likelihood of a chaotic and unpredictable leadership race.
In a highly unusual intervention, former Conservative Prime Minister Sir John Major warned Labor against a candidate who would abandon Sir Keir and become the seventh prime minister in a decade.
He told the BBC that people should stop seeing politics as a ‘competition game’. He called on political parties to focus on developing solutions to long-term problems such as Britain’s aging society, rather than focusing on individual leaders.
‘The fate of individual politicians is not as important as the development of correct policy,’ he said. ‘I mean, it’s not a good idea to keep changing prime ministers.’
The Mail on Sunday revealed last week that Ms Rayner telephoned senior members of the parliamentary Labor Party to urge them to “now or never” if they wanted to sack the Prime Minister.
The former Deputy Prime Minister is seen as the favorite to replace Sir Keir if a contest is triggered quickly before Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham gets another House of Commons seat.
But dozens of Labor MPs oppose him taking up the post. He remains under investigation by HM Revenue and Customs over his failure to pay £40,000 in stamp duty on a luxury flat in Hove, which forced him to resign from the Cabinet last September.
Some critics have now launched an ‘Anyone but Ange’ campaign designed to keep her out of No 10.
A Labor MP told the Times: “There’s a lot of will behind the ‘Anyone but Ange’ idea. If we do nothing, we’ll be sleepwalking towards Angela Rayner’s premiership.’
If Ms Rayner steps aside, the next favorite to replace Sir Keir will be Mr Miliband, who will find himself handed over the keys to No 10 a decade after being publicly rejected by the public in 2015.
One MP told the Daily Mail: ‘Miliband has been tried, tested and failed as a leader. ‘It would be impossible to explain to my constituents why we are appointing someone they have already said no to, if we put aside his ideas that would cause us real problems with markets.’
Health Secretary Wes Streeting is said to be considering a run for the leadership but polls suggest he will struggle to beat a Left winger in the final round of Labor members.
This increases Sir Keir’s chances of survival in the short term as Andy Burnham’s supporters plot his return to Westminster.
