Starmer’s premiership is dying. Nobody knows how to save it.

LONDON — Routed by insurgents to his left and right Friday, Keir Starmer tried to strike a defiant tone.

The U.K. prime minister on Friday morning vowed to “keep on fighting … for as long as I’ve got breath in my body” in the wake of a by-election thumping in Gorton and Denton that saw Labour finish an uncomfortable third behind both the victorious left-wing Greens and Nigel Farage’s Reform UK.

Vanishingly few people in his party think that, politically speaking, that will be very long.

The result, one of the worst in Labour’s recent history, has turbocharged the acrimonious debate about Starmer’s perilous position and the direction he is taking his party in. 

Six government ministers, MPs and officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, told POLITICO they don’t expect the prime minister to be ousted in the wake of the result, which two people separately described as the “worst case scenario.” Further election hammerings expected in national and local contests in May are seen as the next flashpoint which could end his premiership less than two years after he won a landslide majority. 

The Scottish Labour MP Brian Leishman was blunt on Friday, saying: “He has to go for the good of Scotland, the U.K. and the party.”

Starmer and his allies insist they can turn things around — and that no massive change of strategy is needed. In a Friday interview, the prime minister gave no indication he was planning another major reset of his leadership to convince his detractors internally and externally. And in a direct emailed plea to all Labour MPs to stay the course Friday, Starmer promised to “learn lessons,” while hitting out at the “extreme” endorsements racked up by the Greens.

“I wouldn’t over-interpret the idea that we’re suddenly going to dump [what we’ve been doing] and do something totally different,” a senior government official said.

“You can have a change of emphasis. But rather than doing a massive course correction, we’re going to look at this sensibly,” the official added. “We are taking a breath and looking at the result, but I think we are very much committed to the plan we’ve got.”

Slide to the left?

Whether Starmer and his allies can stick to the keep calm and carry on strategy is an open question within Labour. And it has been for some time, given Starmer’s dreadful personal popularity ratings and multiple unforced errors from the party since it entered government. 

“What’s being discussed right now is what direction the party goes in. It’s been going on especially since Morgan [McSweeney, the PM’s former chief of staff] left,” a government minister said.

“Do we chase the progressive Green and Lib Dem vote to try and unite the left against Reform? Do we try to win back ex-Labour voters going Reform? Or is it something in the middle?” this person said. “Losing to the Greens makes it much more likely the argument about chasing progressives wins out.”

The exit of McSweeney, Starmer’s long-time strategy guru who quit amid scrutiny of ex-U.S. Ambassador Peter Mandelson, had already sparked a push from Labour’s center-left flank for a more stridently left-wing message. These MPs want to prioritize winning back progressive voters tempted by the other parties on the British left. 

In the wake of the result in Gorton and Denton, Starmer’s former deputy Angela Rayner — seen as a standard bearer of Labour’s left — said the result “must be a wake up call,” and that her party must be “braver” if it wants to “unrig the system.” 

Another champion of what’s known as the “soft-left”  of the party, Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham, was keeping his powder dry in the wake of the result. That’s despite the Labour veteran, seen as a likely challenger to Starmer, being blocked by the prime minister and his team from running for the seat. Burnham is expected to speak for the first time Wednesday at a Westminster event.

Other Labour MPs to Rayner and Burnham’s left have already called for Starmer to go. Leishman, the Scottish Labour MP, said that Starmer “made a selfish mistake in blocking Andy Burnham from standing and it’s yet another example of him and his advisers making bad judgement calls.” 

Yet others in the party warn against a reactionary drift to the left.

“[Labour] will seize any opportunity it can to move to the left so that is what people will be advocating internally, even though since last summer Labour has been moving to the left,” one senior figure on the right of the party said. This person pointed to U-turns in 2025 on welfare reform and recognition of Palestine.

“All of that stuff hasn’t done them any good against the Greens. And equally, trying to define yourself as anti-Reform clearly hasn’t worked. People will try to blame it all on the Morgan strategy but the Morgan strategy ended at the welfare revolt,” this person added. 

A soft left Labour figure hit back, arguing that “only the Labour right could see themselves beaten by the Greens by 5,000 votes and come to the conclusion that chasing the progressive vote is the wrong thing to do.” 

Keep calm and Keir-y on

Any change in direction may have to wait for new blood in No.10 Downing Street.

Multiple senior roles in Starmer’s top team remain functionally vacant, with no director of communications and two people currently filling the chief of staff role on an interim basis. Antonia Romeo took over as cabinet secretary, the most senior civil service role on Whitehall, only last week.

Labour MPs and ministers had been in confident mood ahead of the by-election, and had insisted only they were in a position to defeat Reform UK. Starmer had even visited the constituency ahead of polling day, an unusual move for a prime minister in a by-election and one which projected confidence Labour’s vote was holding up. That lack of expectation management only added to the shellshocked feeling within Labour ranks when the results dropped early Friday morning.

Other strategists insist the party had to approach the contest with some swagger, in order to try and convince Green-leaning voters to back them as the best bet against Reform. In the wake of the result, Labour spinners and allies of the PM insisted the Green surge was a one-off protest in a by-election, and that voters will behave differently in a general election. 

“We will squeeze the Green vote when there’s a general election. It is different and more difficult in many ways in a by-election,” one Cabinet minister said. 

The senior official quoted further above said voters will turn away from the Greens “when they have proper scrutiny.” Labour’s limited attacks on the Greens during the campaign centered around their platform of legalizing drugs. 

But a different Labour official, responding to the government line, said “these people are delusional.”

Starmer does still have some options, and is buoyed by the disorganization of potential rivals and the raw fact that a leadership contest triggered soon would drag on through the local elections. Westminster is rife with persistent speculation that Starmer may reshuffle his cabinet at some stage, and several soft left MPs have pushed for promotions for those from their wing of the party. One official from a Labour-leaning think tank said there was a strong drive from the left to promote Ed Miliband, the party’s former leader and current energy secretary, to the role of chancellor. 

No. 10 declined to comment on speculation around a reshuffle. One right-leaning Labour MP said they believe Labour will now “sit and do nothing until at least May,” with decisions not being taken. “The PM is too weak now to do much of a reshuffle as well I would think so inertia will set in,” the MP added. 

“Starmer needs to go out and explain why he’s in politics and what his vision for the country is and how he’s going to deliver it,” the senior Labour figure quoted further above said.

But, that person added: “But if he hasn’t already done that 18 months in, it’s quite tricky, isn’t it.” 

Dan Bloom and Esther Webber contributed reporting.