If Starmer doesn’t quit the Labour Party is doomed

‘You don’t change the pilot during the flight because of a bit of turbulence,’ Deputy Prime Minister David Lammy said today, in the face of Labour’s dismal and depressing showing at the local elections. 

But the seismic nature of last night’s results can’t be described as mere turbulence. The control panel is flashing red and Labour has a pilot who doesn’t know how he’s flying us into the mountain. 

This is crash and burn politics, pure and simple. 

Salford, Wigan, Tameside, Halton, Hartlepool. Areas where the Labour vote could once be weighed rather than counted are now painted in turquoise with swings as large as a drag on a Nigel Farage cigarette. 

Local elections are typically known for focusing on issues that are close to home – bins, schools, potholes.

But on this occasion, Labour, bizarrely, chose to nationalise them. The party declared that people should vote for their local council candidate because the Prime Minister stood up to Donald Trump; all the while, Nigel Farage roared bellicosely, ‘Vote Reform to get rid of Starmer.’

The country listened to the latter.

And there is only one man responsible – Sir Keir Starmer. 

But he’s refusing to carry the can. 

It is inconceivable that a man who has been obliterated by the democratic machine gun can continue to limp on rather than being put out of his misery. 

It’s not just selfish to his party – it makes a mockery of a country that is crying out desperately for hope, change and fairness. 

I’ve been in and around Labour politics for over a decade in one guise or another and I keep hearing the same thing, whether it’s at the football or from activists on doorsteps: ‘He’s got to go,’ ‘He is hopeless,’ and ‘I can’t stand him’. 

I don’t think Labour is the problem; it is the leader. I struggle to think of a British politician more universally disliked, whether it be down to pernicious policy missteps on winter fuel payments, his inauthentic nature or the fact that so many can’t name what he stands for. 

Put simply: Keir Starmer just isn’t very good at politics. 

But one thing has remained consistent – his refusal to change, and his stubbornness to remain in office. 

We can see from his remarks today that his resolve has been strengthened, not weakened, and from the reports that he plans to use the party machinery of the NEC to again block any future hope of Andy Burnham coming to the rescue.

It makes Boris Johnson’s refusal to leave in 2022 look like a dignified exit. The herd is set to move, but the battered and bruised Starmer thinks he can outrun the hyenas. 

When I speak to Labour MPs from the left and right of the party, the overwhelming feeling is disbelief. They think his conviction that this situation can be solved by another speech, a new director of communications or a cabinet reshuffle is deluded. 

I said 12 months ago we would lose Wales and Scotland and it would be time for a ‘Joe Biden-like’ conversation with Starmer. This is Starmer’s ‘first debate’ moment: every single poll says he doesn’t win in 2029. 

The next step should be a statement in which the Prime Minister expresses his regret at his failure and sets out a timetable for his departure. 

Starmer needs to do the selfless thing and put the national interest first. Let him write his own obituary: he can leave now and still be the man who got Labour into government one term after the worst defeat since the 1930s. 

Who made it not scary to vote Labour; who got rid of Jeremy Corbyn; who delivered a landslide. 

Better that than being remembered by history as the man who gave the keys to Number 10 to Nigel Farage. 

I’ve long been a proponent of Andy Burnham. When asked who should lead the Labour Party if Starmer resigned, 17% of Britons gave the Greater Manchester Mayor as their answer (second-highest choice Angela Rayner was barely visible behind him at 5%).

Burnham is the only politician to consistently hold a positive net favourability rating at +6. Politics is about popularity and he has it in spades – he polls ahead of Farage (and anyone else) on whether he would make a good PM. 

I’m not from the left or right of politics; I just want the best for the country and the Labour Party. I don’t have a faction – I never have. I believe in evidence over ideology and take no joy in making predictions that seemingly come true about Labour. 

In fact, I want them to bounce back, for the sake of all of those that rely on a Labour government to protect, embolden and support them in their lives and their ambitions. 

I want them to deliver a programme that puts fairness back into communities and a new social contract that means people who play by the rules can get on in life. 

But that is a change that cannot come while Starmer is in charge. 

The Prime Minister needs to do the right thing and resign – and MPs need to tell him to do so too. 

Those who don’t will be complicit in the demise of the Labour Party and the handing of Downing Street to Farage. 

After that: it’s Burnham or bust. 

Do you have a story you’d like to share? Get in touch by emailing Ross.Mccafferty@metro.co.uk. 

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