Labour MPs turn on Starmer after election losses and resignations
Labour’s worst local and devolved results have sparked a leadership revolt, with 92 MPs demanding Starmer go and 111 publicly backing him.
Labour’s worst local and devolved results in years have erupted into a test of Keir Starmer’s authority, with 92 MPs now calling for his resignation or a timetable for departure and 111 others lining up behind him to block a leadership challenge.
The scale of the blow was brutal. Labour lost control of more than 30 councils across England and about 1,500 councillors, was reduced to a rump in Wales, and saw First Minister Eluned Morgan lose her seat in the Senedd. In Scotland, Labour failed to make a significant breakthrough against the Scottish National Party, with its vote share down from 2021. For a party that entered government promising competence and control, the results have become a referendum on whether those claims still hold.
The revolt has moved beyond post-election anger into an institutional crisis. By Tuesday afternoon, the number of Labour MPs publicly urging Starmer to step aside or announce when he will leave had climbed into the 80s and 90s, far beyond the 20% threshold, or 81 MPs, that would be needed to force a leadership contest in the House of Commons. At the same time, more than 100 MPs had signed a counter-statement defending Starmer and warning against a contest that could tear the government apart.
The pressure intensified after four junior ministers and aides resigned, including Jess Phillips, while senior figures such as David Lammy and John Healey repeated their backing for the prime minister. Starmer has refused to quit. He told ministers the past 48 hours had been “destabilising”, said the Labour Party has a process for challenging a leader that has not been triggered, and insisted he would “get on with governing” rather than “walk away”.
What is driving the break with Starmer is not only personal loyalty or dislike. Critics inside Labour are arguing that the party needs more than a change of figurehead. They want a change of policy, and some MPs are warning that if Starmer stays on unchanged, Labour could face disaster at the next general election. The names being discussed as possible alternatives, Angela Rayner, Wes Streeting and Andy Burnham, point to a party searching for a reset in strategy as much as in leadership. Burnham is not currently an MP, but his name has surfaced as a symbol of a broader demand for a different direction.
The rebellion is already being compared with Labour’s welfare revolt in 2025, when the government was forced into major concessions after its biggest rebellion in office so far. That history matters because it shows how quickly parliamentary dissent can turn into policy retreat. This time, the question is bigger: whether election losses have already become a governing crisis for Starmer, and whether Labour can contain it before it hardens into something far more serious.
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