UK’s Starmer to ‘get on with governing’, defies calls to quit
At a meeting of his cabinet, there was no official move to trigger a leadership contest even as three junior ministers quit
At a meeting of his cabinet, Starmer, in the top job for less than two years, repeated that, while he took responsibility for one of his Labour Party’s worst election defeats, there had been no official move to trigger a leadership contest. Several loyal ministers expressed their support for him.
It was the latest pledge from Starmer to press on with a premiership dogged by scandal and policy U-turns since he won a large majority at a national election in 2024, and leaves the leader and Labour rebels in something of a stalemate.
Support in the wider Labour Party has also started to ebb away. Jess Phillips, a well-known Labour lawmaker and women’s rights campaigner, became the second junior minister to resign on Tuesday, joining more than 80 lawmakers who have publicly called on Starmer to set a timetable for leaving office.
Alex Davies-Jones, a junior minister in the justice department, also resigned on Tuesday in protest of Starmer’s leadership, .
“We have needed to do more and therefore it is with a very, heavy heart that I feel I have no choice but to resign,” Davies-Jones said in a letter addressed to Starmer posted on social media.
All eyes were on a clutch of senior party figures, such as health minister Wes Streeting who has made little secret of his ambition to become prime minister one day, to see whether they would move to challenge Starmer directly.