Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper is positioning herself to succeed Sir Keir Starmer as Prime Minister – on a ‘nightmare ticket’ with Ed Miliband.
Ms Cooper would present herself as a centrist ‘unifying force’ if Sir Keir is forced out after May’s local elections, sources claim.
And while she would insist she was taking the job only on a caretaker basis, ahead of a leadership contest, Ms Cooper’s supporters hope after ‘earning her spurs’ she would be urged to lead the party into the next General Election.
Under the plan, Mr Miliband – the former Labour leader who, like Ms Cooper, was a Cabinet minister under Gordon Brown – would serve as Chancellor.
The Energy Secretary tops the list when party members are asked to rate potential leaders – with Ms Cooper in 11th place. That lowly position is why her supporters hope she can be manoeuvred into the job without a contest.
Despite being tipped to run himself, Mr Miliband’s friends say his stint as leader between 2010 and 2015 – symbolised by his struggles to eat a bacon sandwich on camera – has removed his appetite for the top job. ‘Ed would rather be the power behind the throne than on the throne’ says one.
It would give Mr Miliband the power to push through more of his Net Zero policies on climate change which have been blamed for increasing the burden on struggling businesses.
Shadow Chancellor Mel Stride said: ‘A Miliband-Cooper leadership plan would be a nightmare ticket for Britain – Red Ed back in charge with the same old Gordon Brown playbook that left our economy weaker and families poorer.’
Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper during a visit to a British military base near Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, on March 13
Ed Miliband enjoys his bacon sandwich at New Covent Garden Flower Market in May 2014
The plot to appoint the party’s first female leader has emerged as Whitehall insiders say the business of government has been paralysed by uncertainty over Sir Keir’s future. A source said: ‘Keir is seen as a dead man walking. So the system is basically moving on from him. People are just sitting down and waiting.’
But there are obstacles in the path of all of Sir Keir’s putative successors: former deputy PM Angela Rayner is waiting for the outcome of HMRC’s investigation into her underpayment of stamp duty on her seaside home, Health Secretary Wes Streeting is scarred by his association with Peter Mandelson, and Manchester mayor Andy Burnham is still trying to find a way into the House of Commons, without which he cannot launch a bid.
It means that senior party figures are coalescing around caretaker figures such as Ms Cooper or Defence Secretary John Healey.
A Labour MP said: ‘Yvette’s name is being increasingly mentioned as someone who could come in as interim leader. She wouldn’t win an open leadership contest but the party may turn to her as an…experienced hand who could steady the ship after Keir goes.’
Ms Cooper was yesterday granted the classic rite-of-passage for a Labour leadership hopeful hiding in plain sight: an exended profile in The Guardian presenting her in premier-mode.
It shows Ms Cooper jetting around the world, ‘firing Peter Mandelson, convening with [US Secretary of State] Marco Rubio – then handling the fallout of conflict in the Middle East’ while being ‘crisp and cool’.
However, the article also highlighted why Ms Cooper’s colleagues may have reservations: ‘It’s frustrating when she talks in long, obstructive, unpunctuated answers that sound rehearsed,’ said the interviewer. ‘She comes across as… robotic.’