Minister declines to say Keir Starmer will lead Labour into next election

One of the Prime Minister’s closest aides declined to say whether Sir Keir Starmer would lead his party into the next election amid mounting calls for him to resign.

Cabinet minister Darren Jones, the Chief Secretary to the Prime Minister, said Sir Keir was “getting on with the job of being Prime Minister” despite reports senior ministers had privately urged him to set out a timetable for his departure.

But asked whether Sir Keir would lead Labour into the next election, Mr Jones told Sky News: “I’m not going to get ahead of any decision the PM may or may not take.”

He added that Sir Keir had been “very clear yesterday that he will not be walking away”, adding: “At the front of my mind is that we’re getting up and getting on with the job because I think it’s a dereliction of duty to do anything otherwise.”

In a speech on Monday meant to set out Labour’s response to last week’s disastrous local election results, Sir Keir said he would prove his doubters wrong as he vowed to carry on in office.

But the speech triggered an avalanche of Labour backbenchers publicly calling for Sir Keir to go, including a number of junior ministerial aides who resigned to do so.

Some 72 of Labour’s 403 MPs have so far called for the Prime Minister to set out a timetable for his resignation.

The Press Association understands that 80 MPs have signed a letter from former minister Catherine West urging Sir Keir to take this step, most of whom have publicly expressed their loss of confidence in his leadership.

In a sign that Sir Keir could be planning to dig in, Downing Street announced the appointment of six new ministerial aides on Monday night to replace those who had resigned.

But while some backbenchers came out to back the Prime Minister, reports suggested Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood had privately spoken with Sir Keir and advised him to consider his position.

Other senior ministers are reported to have spoken with the Prime Minister about his future before a scheduled Cabinet meeting on Tuesday morning, intended to focus on the crisis in the Middle East.

Mr Jones said he would not discuss private conversations between Sir Keir and his Cabinet ministers, but added the Prime Minister “obviously will be in conversations with colleagues because of the issues that they have raised”.

But he also pleaded with his parliamentary colleagues to keep discussions about Labour’s future private, telling BBC Breakfast: “I would just say to my colleagues: it’d be better to have that conversation internally as opposed to in public, because it detracts from our work as a Government and detracts from the wrongdoings of the other parties.”

Doubts about the Prime Minister’s future have sparked speculation about possible successors, with some looking to Health Secretary Wes Streeting while others preferring a longer timetable to allow Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham to return to Parliament and enter any contest.

On Monday, Sir Keir declined to say whether he would back Mr Burnham’s return to Westminster, claiming it was a matter for Labour’s ruling national executive committee (NEC).

The NEC, which is dominated by Sir Keir’s supporters, blocked Mr Burnham’s bid to contest the Gorton and Denton by-election – a decision former deputy prime minister Angela Rayner said on Monday should be “put right”.

Asked about the possibility of Mr Burnham seeking election to Parliament, Mr Jones told the BBC: “There’s a lot of fantasy politics going on at the moment.

“Keir Starmer won a historic majority less than two years ago at the ballot box alongside all of us in the Labour Party.”

Meanwhile, the cost of long-term government borrowing surged and the pound weakened amid the uncertainty about the Prime Minister’s future, while the stock market fell sharply as the US and Iran remained deadlocked on a resolution to the Middle East conflict.