{"id":954078,"date":"2026-05-12T04:38:16","date_gmt":"2026-05-12T04:38:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/954078\/"},"modified":"2026-05-12T04:38:16","modified_gmt":"2026-05-12T04:38:16","slug":"itv-news-tracks-78-mps-prepared-to-oust-starmer-as-potential-leadership-battle-looms","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/954078\/","title":{"rendered":"ITV News tracks 78 MPs prepared to oust Starmer as potential leadership battle looms"},"content":{"rendered":"

Words by ITV News Producer, Kieran Carter<\/strong><\/p>\n

At least 78 MPs are prepared to oust Sir Keir Starmer, as he faces ongoing questions around his leadership in the wake of last week’s devastating election results for the Labour Party. <\/p>\n

ITV News has spoken to and tracked online 73 MPs who think the prime minister should immediately set out a timeline for his departure – and a further five who believe he should leave if things do not improve.<\/p>\n

In a message sent to all 403 members of the parliamentary Labour Party, ITV News asked whether, in the wake of a speech delivered by the PM on Monday morning, they still had confidence Starmer was the right person to lead their party.<\/p>\n

In responses made publicly online, and given directly to ITV News, nearly 15% of Labour MPs said they did not.<\/p>\n

In a speech on Monday, the prime minister told the British public “incremental change won’t cut it”, as he pledged to go further on defence, energy and in forging closer ties with Europe.<\/p>\n

His words came against a backdrop of a leadership challenge ultimatum from backbench MP Catherine West, who described the speech as “too little too late”.<\/p>\n

West herself initially promised to launch her own leadership bid in an attempt to force a cabinet member to stand down.<\/p>\n

She has since appeared to ride back on these threats, instead messaging Labour colleagues to ask for their support in urging the PM to set out a timeframe for his departure.<\/p>\n

At the time of writing, ITV News has spoken to and tracked at least 70 MPs who agree with West’s proposal for the PM to go, or say that if things don’t change soon, he should leave. <\/p>\n

Subscribe free to<\/strong> our weekly newsletter <\/strong><\/a>for exclusive and original coverage from ITV News. Direct to your inbox every Friday morning.<\/strong> <\/p>\n

For a candidate to mount a leadership challenge, they would need 81 supporters to trigger a race, a contest Starmer told journalists on Monday he would fight in were it to take place.<\/p>\n

Some MPs argue the timing of West’s threats to Labour leadership risks a “cabinet stitch-up”, and serves to benefit certain potential leadership candidates more than others.<\/p>\n

The PM’s speech was followed by a speech from one potential leadership candidate, Angela Rayner, who was speaking at a union conference in Bournemouth.<\/p>\n

Rayner said more change was needed, with a return to core Labour values, and argued the decision to block the Manchester Mayor, Andy Burnham, from returning to parliament as an MP was a mistake.<\/p>\n

Burnham himself is frequently spoken about as the strongest contender to take on Starmer in a leadership contest, but as he is not currently an MP would be unable to do so.<\/p>\n

This is a moving tracker, and total numbers could change.<\/strong><\/p>\n

From Westminster to Washington DC – our political experts are across all the latest key talking points. Listen to the latest episode below…<\/strong><\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Words by ITV News Producer, Kieran Carter At least 78 MPs are prepared to oust Sir Keir Starmer,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":954079,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[13,12,14],"class_list":{"0":"post-954078","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-stories"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/954078","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=954078"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/954078\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/954079"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=954078"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=954078"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=954078"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}