Keir Starmer Lives To Fight Another Day After Anas Sarwar Ambush Backfires
Anas Sarwar has managed to achieve the seemingly impossible and united Keir Starmer’s cabinet behind him – at least for now.
The Scottish Labour leader decided to push the nuclear button by calling an emergency press conference and demanding the prime minister quit.
It led to feverish speculation that it would be the first salvo in a concerted attempt by senior Labour figures to unseat Starmer ahead of May’s elections in Scotland, Wales and across England.
Indeed, Sarwar himself made it clear that he wanted to see the PM replaced by someone more popular to at least give Scottish Labour half a chance as they try to defeat the SNP.
Specifically, he said Downing Street’s disastrous handling of the Peter Mandelson scandal meant Starmer had to go.
“The distraction needs to end and the leadership in Downing Street has to change,” the Scottish Labour leader said.
“We cannot allow the failures at the heart of Downing Street to mean the failures continue here in Scotland, because the election in May is not without consequence for the lives of Scots,” he declared.
But Sarwar’s battle cry went unheeded, with sources close to Welsh first minister Eluned Morgan denying suggestions that she would also be calling for Starmer to quit.
Significantly, it appeared that the Scottish Labour leader had little support from even his own countrymen and women.
One Scottish MP told HuffPost UK: “Who does Anas want to be prime minister? Does he even know? If he’s doing this with no idea of the end game, then frankly what’s the fucking point?
“The first rule of politics is never demand someone’s resignation unless you know you’re going to get it.”
Sarwar’s assault also had the unintended consequence of reigniting a seemingly extinct fighting spirit within Starmer’s Downing Street operation.
Cabinet ministers, previously reluctant to make clear their support for the PM, were strong-armed into going on social media and doing just that.
In what was clearly a co-ordinated operation, every member of the cabinet, as well as junior ministers, Labour mayors and potential leadership contenders, took to X to say now was not the time for the PM to go.
Whether their sentiments were sincere or not, it was an impressive display of raw political power, marginalising Sarwar while gaining buy-in from ministers whose backing for Starmer’s leadership has rarely been full-throated.
The PM was then greeted with loud roars of approval and enthusiastic applause when he attended a meeting of the Parliamentary Labour Party on Monday evening.
Far from fatally undermining Starmer, Sarwar’s act of sedition has, remarkably, bolstered the prime minister at a time when he appeared to be at his lowest ebb.
The prime minister is far from out of the woods, of course, and it is still far more likely than not that he will be forced out of No.10 by the summer.
But after days of unremittingly awful headlines, and against all the odds, Sarwar’s cack-handed attempts to unseat him have left Starmer stronger than he has been in months.