London (AFP) – British Prime Minister Keir Starmer promised on Saturday he would “listen to voters” after his Labour party received a historic drubbing in local and regional elections. After a disillusioned electorate backed hard-right and nationalist parties in Thursday’s ballots, Starmer’s cabinet colleagues appeared to be rallying around — but two lawmakers urged them to take decisive action on his leadership.
In Scotland, the Scottish National Party (SNP) leader John Swinney predicted that the anti-immigration Reform UK party would likely win the next general election. He called for the chance to hold another independence referendum to shield Scotland from any future Reform government. Thursday’s polls were Starmer’s biggest electoral test since Labour ousted the Conservatives in 2024.
“The right lesson is to listen to voters” but it “doesn’t mean tacking right or left,” Starmer, who has faced calls to resign, wrote in The Guardian newspaper in response to the ballot box pummelling. Reform, led by populist politician Nigel Farage, made gains across England, Scotland and Wales — though Scottish and Welsh parties took the biggest share of seats in those elections. With almost all votes tallied, the results were grim for Labour.
“I think there’s now a responsibility on the cabinet to talk to Keir and to recognise, as they obviously are picking up on the doorstep, that this can’t carry on forever,” Labour MP Clive Betts told BBC radio. “There has to be a timetable. There has to be a way to actually bring in a new leader in a proper and constructive manner in the next few months.”
– ‘Mistakes’ – Betts, who is not considered one of Starmer’s obvious critics, is among numerous Labour lawmakers to publicly suggest he ought to resign or set out a plan for doing so. A second lawmaker, Catherine West, told the BBC that if a cabinet minister did not challenge Starmer by Monday, she would try to trigger a leadership contest herself — a move that could open the door to others.
Starmer has vowed to remain as Britain’s prime minister but admitted his party had failed to sustain the public’s trust that it was doing enough to deliver change. His government had “made unnecessary mistakes” and failed to give the public “hope,” he wrote. He is expected to attempt a reset of his leadership in a major speech on Monday. This will be followed up on Wednesday with the traditional State Opening of Parliament, when King Charles III outlines legislation the government is preparing for the next parliamentary session.
Starmer also enlisted the help of party heavyweights Harriet Harman and former prime minister Gordon Brown Saturday by handing them advisory roles. But Robert Ford, professor of political science at the University of Manchester, told AFP that political history was not on Starmer’s side. “There’s just literally no example, zero example of a prime minister recovering from the kind of opinion poll ranking he has now,” he said. “The public have decided they don’t like it. I doubt they’re going to change their mind,” he said.
– Independence referendum – The election results are particularly crushing for Labour in Wales, where they lost control of the devolved government for the first time since the parliament in Cardiff was established 27 years ago. Nationalists Plaid Cymru, which wants Welsh independence in the long-term, is now the biggest party with Reform second and Labour third.
In Scotland, the SNP remains the biggest party at the Scottish Parliament in Edinburgh but failed to get a majority — winning six fewer seats than in 2021. Swinney predicted that Farage “is now galloping towards Downing Street.” “We need to have the protection of being an independent country from being affected and influenced by the election of a Farage government,” he said.
In England, Reform picked up nearly 1,500 of the 5,000 council seats available and the Greens also fared well, gaining more than 500. Labour lost almost 1,400 council seats and ceded control of several local authorities — though results in London were not as bad as predicted.
© 2024 AFP
