Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer has refused to go quietly, as some within the UK’s Labour government had clearly hoped, and has defied the rebels to openly challenge him. After months of talk about Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer being set up to take the fall for the May local elections, now that the moment has arrived, it appears possible his greatest strength is a simple-minded disinclination to pay attention to his critics whatsoever.
At Monday’s ‘reset’ speech — only the latest of his leadership so far, the cloyingly earnest tones now a familiar part of the rhythm of British political life — Starmer vowed to ignore the public mood and laid into the British right, who he defined as including those who notice the country’s problems and who diagnose mass migration as a contributing factor. Today, he doubled down again, taking the initiative in a crunch cabinet meeting with his most senior colleagues where he was expected to be delivered an ultimatum to start the resignation process. After the cabinet broke up, it was claimed that Starmer instead refused to give others an opportunity to speak, outlined his determination to remain in post, and delivered an ultimatum of his own. In traditional British political parlance, the message to the plotters is to “put up or shut up“: make the challenge formal or go away.
