British Prime Minister Keir Starmer rejected calls for his resignation after his Labour Party suffered a disastrous loss in UK’s local elections last week. The elections saw the worst loss of a governing party in local elections in more than three decades, resulting in further scrutiny over Starmer’s leadership.
Nigel Farage’s Reform Party emerged as the big winner in the elections conducted on Thursday, making gains in former Labour turfs such as Hartlepool.
Starmer told the Observer newspaper on Sunday that he would lead the Labour Party in the next general elections and serve a full second term.
“I’m not going to walk away from the job I was elected to do in 2024. I’m not going to plunge the country into chaos,” said Starmer.
Starmer’s cabinet is standing behind him despite the loss.
Education Minister Bridget Phillipson told Sky News on Sunday that she was confident the Prime Minister could turn things around and announced that he would set out a “fresh direction” for Britain in a speech on Monday.
She acknowledged the voters’ dissatisfaction with the governance, admitting, “We got a real kicking from the voters, there’s no escaping that. We have to reflect seriously on that.”
Former Junior Foreign Minister Catherine West, who was removed from the position by Starmer last year, said she would listen to his speech on Monday before deciding on whether to seek the support of 81 parliament members to initiate a leadership contest.
If Starmer ends up being removed in the following weeks, the United Kingdom would have its seventh Prime Minister in the last 10 years. On the other hand, if he survives a potential leadership contest and remains in the office at the end of a second five-year term, he would become the third-longest serving continuous leader in the UK in the last two centuries after Margaret Thatcher and Tony Blair.
