Keir Starmer challenged his critics to oust him yesterday and refused to resign despite a growing contingent of ministers and MPs calling for his head.
He gathered his Cabinet ministers around the table at No 10 for what was expected to be a high-stakes meeting, with some of his closest allies ready to tell him his time was up.
But the Prime Minister instead defied the threat of rebellion and insisted that because no leadership contest had been formally triggered, he would not be going anywhere.
A spokesman said Sir Keir had played down the crisis in his premiership and told ministers: ‘The country expects us to get on with governing.
‘That is what I am doing and what we must do as a Cabinet.’
And the PM even dared his challengers to step up and trigger a contest if they want him to quit.
Last night, in a show of support for the PM, Deputy Prime Minister David Lammy said ‘no one has the names’ to challenge Sir Keir.
So far, more than 90 MPs have called for him to quit or set out a timetable to stand down. But 81 would need to line up behind a single candidate to launch a leadership bid.
Health Secretary Wes Streeting arriving at Downing Street amid rumours of a potential leadership bid
High-stakes session: Energy Secretary Ed Miliband arriving at Downing Street for a cabinet meeting
Speaking outside Downing Street, Mr Lammy said: ‘Let’s just step back. Take a breath.’
But four ministers tendered their resignations during the day, identifying Sir Keir personally as the root cause of Labour’s problems.
The biggest of those names was Birmingham Yardley MP Jess Phillips, who said she had lost faith in Sir Keir’s promises and quit with a blast at his sluggishness in trying to reduce violence against kids.
In a scathing letter, the safeguarding minister directly accused the PM of leaving children without a ‘safety net’ online because of his ‘desire not to have an argument’.
Using a specific example, Ms Phillips explained that she presented solutions to Sir Keir ‘more than a year ago’ that would prevent British children being able to take naked images of themselves, which contributes to child sex abuse online.
‘The technology exists to stop children being able to take naked images of themselves,’ she wrote. ‘We could make this possible on every phone and device in the country. We could stop this abuse.’
But in a damning indictment of Sir Keir’s priorities, she added: ‘It has taken me a year to get you to agree to even threaten to legislate in this space. Not legislate, just threaten. This is the definition of incremental change. Nothing bold about it.
‘The announcement was meant to be in March, I’m still on a promise this will happen in June, I’ve given up believing it.’
‘Real change’ on tackling violence against women and girls,’ she added, ‘usually came from threats made by me in light of catastrophic mistakes’.
While calling Sir Keir a ‘good man fundamentally’, Ms Phillips wrote that ‘the desire not to have an argument means we rarely make an argument, leaving opportunities for progress stalled and delayed’.
Deputy Prime Minister, Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice David Lammy arriving at Downing Street
Ms Phillips added: ‘I know you care deeply, but deeds, not words are what matter. I’m not sure we are grasping this rare opportunity with the gusto that’s needed and I cannot keep waiting around for a crisis to push for faster progress.’
She was one of several ministers who resigned yesterday in protest at Sir Keir’s position as premier.
Alex Davies-Jones, also a minister in the Home Office, used her resignation letter to highlight how the Government failed Hillsborough victims under Sir Keir – and implored him to stand aside.
The Hillsborough Law was first promised by Sir Keir when he was leader of the opposition in 2022, and was included in Labour’s general election manifesto, but it has not yet passed. Calling for ‘bold, radical action’, Ms Davies-Jones wrote: ‘I know you to be a good and honest man.
‘But in my heart are my constituents, the victims I have had the honour of working with every day, including the Hillsborough victims and their families, and all those who demand better of us.’
Referring to Labour’s disastrous local election results last week, she added: ‘The scale of the electoral defeats at the Senedd Cymru and across the United Kingdom have been catastrophic.’
Miatta Fahnbulleh, a close ally of Energy Secretary Ed Miliband, told Sir Keir he had ‘lost the trust and confidence of the public’ as she resigned from her post as devolution, faith and communities minister yesterday morning.
She wrote: ‘Our country faces enormous challenges and people are crying out for the scale of change that this requires. The public does not believe that you can lead this change – and nor do I.’
Dr Zubir Ahmed became the fourth minister to resign last night, calling the Prime Minister’s position at
No 10 ‘wholly untenable’ as ‘the public across the UK has now irretrievably lost confidence’ in him. In a letter to Sir Keir, the health minister, who is the MP for Glasgow South West, wrote: ‘On door after door your name was specifically cited as the driving reason why Labour voters of 2024 would not vote for Scottish Labour in 2026.
‘The noise created at the centre of the government you lead, inadvertently became the midwife for the delivery of an incompetent fifth term SNP government, and one which will now inflict more division and decay on my constituents of Glasgow South West.
‘This is an outcome that is as intolerable as it was avoidable.’
