UK’s Starmer brings back past to shore up his future
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer has appointed former prime minister Gordon Brown as his global finance ambassador to help bolster his own support following a crushing local election defeat.
Starmer has been on the back foot after Labor recorded the worst losses for a ruling party in a municipal election since 1995, prompting a growing number of his own MPs to call for him to resign.
Aiming to reset his leadership and regain party support, Starmer’s office announced the appointment of two Labor leaders to his team as advisors.
Brown, 75, joins as an adviser on global finance and cooperation, while former Labor deputy leader Harriet Harman, 75, has been appointed to the role of adviser to the prime minister on women and girls.
As Tony Blair’s finance minister, Brown was a key architect of the New Labor project that won the party three consecutive general elections from 1997.
Brown, who served as prime minister from 2007 to 2010, was instrumental in nationalizing major banks and stabilizing the financial system during the global financial crisis.
Starmer vowed on Friday to remain leader as the extent of his party’s defeat began to emerge.
When the final votes were counted on Saturday, the loss of workers amounted to 1417 seats; This was a bigger defeat than the 1,330 seats lost by former prime minister Theresa May’s Conservative Party in 2019.
He may resign three weeks after this result.
A direct challenge to Starmer’s leadership is unlikely and although ministerial allies have been signaling support for him, there are growing calls for him to resign.
With former minister Catherine West joining the fray on Saturday, more than 20 MPs both publicly and privately called on her to consider her position and set a timetable for her departure.
“His approach is inconclusive and the results over the last 48 hours have been nothing short of disastrous,” West said of Starmer in X.
“I know I speak for Labor far more than myself when I ask for him to step aside as our Leader.”
Less than two years after Labor achieved a landslide national election victory, voters quickly turned against Starmer.
Against the backdrop of a cost-of-living crisis exacerbated by conflicts in Ukraine and Iran, his government is beset by U-turns, a changing roster of advisers and a scandal over the appointment of another Blair-era veteran, Peter Mandelson, as Britain’s ambassador to the US.
Writing in the Guardian newspaper on Saturday, Starmer said his government had made “unnecessary mistakes” but was focused on “building a stronger and fairer country”, promising to respond to messages from voters.
