According to Keir Starmer, there’s nothing much to see. The election results have been ‘tough’, he has conceded. And that’s about it.
The voters are impatient for change, he said. But that’s why they elected him. So he will carry on regardless. ‘Tough days like this, they don’t weaken my resolve to deliver the change that I promised at the General Election, they strengthen my resolve to do so,’ he announced.
Amongst his MPs and ministers, this blind denial is causing despair, bordering on panic. One Red-Wall Labour MP summed up the mood: ‘It’s not just carnage. It’s f***ing carnage.’
One Cabinet minister was stunned by Starmer’s indication that he intends to fight the next election. ‘It’s a crazy line. They’re trying to scare the party off from mounting a challenge. But it’s going to have precisely the opposite effect,’ they said.
‘If people think his attitude is “I’m not going anywhere, you’ll have to come and get me”, then people are going to think, “OK, we haven’t got a choice. We’ll just have to go and get him.”’
This anger is entirely justified. In its former Northern heartlands, Labour has not been defeated. Or even routed. It’s simply ceased to exist. The only councils where the party has been able to cling on is where only a third of the seats were up for election.
In London and the South, and Labour’s former northern Metropolitan heartlands, the Greens are surging. In some areas, their advance has been checked slightly because of the anti-Semitism row. But they are still making historic breakthroughs. And, perhaps even more surprisingly, there are the first tentative signs of a recovery for the Tories. To the extent that they will now harbour serious hopes of winning back the London mayoralty in 2028.
Meanwhile, across the country, Labour’s traditional grip on the Muslim vote has also collapsed. In Birmingham, radical Islamist independents managed to secure X seats.
‘Tough days like this, they don’t weaken my resolve to deliver the change that I promised at the General Election, they strengthen my resolve to do so,’ Keir Starmer announced (pictured with James Murray (L), Chief Secretary to the Treasury)
Amongst his MPs and ministers, this blind denial is causing despair, bordering on panic
In the coming hours, a narrative will be floated that describes the British political landscape as ‘fractured’. And there will be some validity to that claim, as the assault on the two main parties from Reform, Green and other independent insurgents continues. But there is one clear pattern.
The North West. The North East. The Midlands. The South. London. Scotland. Wales. One issue now unites each area of our divided Kingdom: A deep, abiding, visceral hatred for Keir Starmer. As Karl Turner, the Labour MP currently suspended by the Prime Minister for opposing his policy of abolishing jury trials, put it succinctly: ‘Keir Starmer is now more toxic on the doorstep in Hull than Jeremy Corbyn ever was.’
His colleague, MP for Normanton and Hemsworth Jon Trickett, matched his bitter eloquence. The antipathy towards Keir Starmer on the doorstep was the worst he had ever known. ‘It’s hard to know what caused it but I think the initial decision to take money off the pensioners – winter fuel allowance – he and Rachel Reeves were never forgiven for it,’ he said. But either way, ‘the message from my constituency is that it’s curtains for Keir’. And yet we already have clear signs of what Keir Starmer’s response to those voters will be: ‘Screw the lot of you. I’m not going anywhere.’
Inside No10, a plan had been drawn up for another ‘relaunch’. It involved the Prime Minister emerging momentarily from his Downing Street bunker to announce his party was shifting to the Left – to tackle the threat from the Greens – and moving decisively back towards Europe to appeal to pro-Remain Liberals and Tories.
That plan has already been blown up on the launch pad. The scale of the losses to Reform would make such a pivot politically suicidal.
Which doesn’t mean Starmer won’t still pursue it. As one minister explained to me: ‘He doesn’t care about appealing to the country now. All he cares about is trying to shore up his position amongst Labour activists.’
Which means the fate of the Government, the Labour Party and the country now rests in the hands of Labour MPs. Over the past couple of weeks, a clear line has been peddled by the dwindling band of Starmer supporters: ‘We know people are angry with Keir. But there’s no one who’s in a position to replace him.’
That was a toxic message at the best of times. But as a response to the electoral carnage currently playing out, it would represent an act of corporate insanity.
As we are witnessing, Keir Starmer is now the most despised leader in modern British political history. Are Labour MPs honestly going to stand up and say to the country, ‘Yeah, we know you hate him. But trust us. He’s the best we’ve got?’
If they do, then there will be only one outcome. Today, Britain has turned its back decisively on Keir Starmer. If his MPs don’t act – and quickly – the hatred towards their leader will be transferred to their party, and to them.