Labour MPs urged to launch leadership challenge against Keir Starmer amid anger over two-child benefit cap
by AIverson3
Labour MPs urged to launch leadership challenge against Keir Starmer amid anger over two-child benefit cap
by AIverson3
8 comments
By Paul Waugh:
A group of former advisers who worked for Starmer and Jeremy Corbyn now believe the Labour leader should be toppled because his stance on the welfare policy is part of a wider conservatism that will switch off voters.
The group were planning to approach Ed Miliband to trigger a challenge, i has learned, but the former Labour leader has made clear he thinks the idea is “nuts” and that Starmer has his full loyalty.
“We wouldn’t give these people the time of day. It’s absolutely bonkers because you could not find someone more loyal to Keir than Ed. It’s completely nuts,” a source close to Miliband said.
Sir Keir’s allies were also sanguine about the idea of a leadership challenge, as party rules require 20 per cent of the Parliamentary party – 39 MPs – to launch any such coup attempt.
But party unease over Starmer’s leadership spilled over at a meeting of the Parliamentary Labour Party on Monday night, when deputy leader Angela Rayner faced calls from backbenchers to rethink the welfare policy.
Sir Keir told the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg at the weekend that Labour was “not changing” the controversial two-child cap, even though his shadow ministers had criticised it for increasing child poverty.
One of the group of former advisers said that Starmer’s remark was “the last straw” because it summed up his overall failure to reassure the public that a Labour government would introduce tangible change from Rishi Sunak’s administration.
One said: “There is a view that it’s necessary to approach a senior figure – most obviously Ed Miliband – to press for a leadership challenge to change course. Despite the poll lead, it is not at all obvious that Keir Starmer would win a Labour leadership election if there was a challenge.
“There is a lot of discontent and the two child cap has helped crystallised it. There’s a number of former Labour advisers who think the current course being set for a Labour government is disastrous.
“Keir’s leadership is setting up a continued squeeze on pay, and letting fiscal rules block or hold back substantial change. That will be a disaster in government, a wasted opportunity, and may open the door to a backlash and the rise of very unpleasant right wing forces”
Another ex adviser said: “There’s a group of former very high level Labour staffers and trade unionists deeply worried about Labour’s longer term electoral prospects under Keir because polling shows people are voting against the Tories and not for Labour.”
“Now is the time to force him out before disaster strikes,” they said. “The group is deadly serious”.
But not a single minister condemned the current party line at the latest Shadow Cabinet meeting on Tuesday. Sir Keir was instead given strong support by Shadow Work and Pensions Secretary Jonathan Ashworth and others after he said every party policy had to be fully costed.
as much as i dislike starmer it’s abundantly clear that this isn’t going to happen, and you have to wonder as to the motivations of whoever is briefing that it might
Haha hilarious. The far left are desperate, aren’t they?
There are some who are desperate for the tories to win.
Seriously doubt that is true. Seems like a lie for the gullible right wing morons obsessed with Corbyn.
So it begins… Labour is so indistinguishable from Labour right now, the only real option is to vote for a third party. I shameless advocate for Green.
Why? At Europe begins to burn I think the reality is going to finally start to set in. We are absolutely F’d. We need a massive change right now.
Fuck Starmer bring on Rayner I say let’s not waste another decade.
Bring on the downvotes, but I honestly cannot fathom why people are so massively against this. Why should have children be incentivised financially? People were literally having children where there was no limit to play the system and then its somehow the tax payers reasonability to reward people who are only having children for financial gain? It’s not the government who are leading to children starving.
It’s the disgusting parents who bring children into this world as a financial incentive. I’m with Starmer on this and I’m a life long lefty. People seem to blame government for absolutely everything and not the people who are causing the issue in the first place. It’s what has lead to so much entitlement in society.
Downvote me all you want but the crux of my argument is that no one is blaming the parents who are bringing children into this world that they cannot afford.