Keir Starmer has told his cabinet he will fight on as prime minister, insisting the threshold for a leadership challenge “has not been met” and daring his internal critics to trigger a contest they cannot yet win. The defiant declaration came during a tense meeting on Tuesday morning, as the embattled Labour leader faced a revolt that has already cost him three junior ministers and drawn open calls from more than 80 MPs to set a timetable for his departure.
‘The threshold has not been met’: Starmer refuses to bow
Addressing his top team, Starmer said he took responsibility for the party’s disastrous local election results but would not be pushed out. “The past 48 hours have been destabilising for government and that has a real economic cost for our country and for families,” he told the meeting. “The Labour party has a process for challenging a leader and that has not been triggered. The country expects us to get on with governing. That is what I am doing and what we must do as a cabinet.”
According to sources, Starmer did not give cabinet critics time to respond before moving the conversation on to the Middle East crisis, and none of the ministers present directly called on him to resign. The prime minister held no one‑on‑one meetings before or after the cabinet, except with his close ally Richard Hermer, who has urged him to fight on. His remarks were seen as a direct challenge to Health Secretary Wes Streeting—one source said Streeting tried to speak to Starmer privately after the meeting but was rebuffed.
Starmer’s position is that any challenger would need the backing of at least 20% of Labour MPs—currently 81 of the 403 Labour members—to trigger a full leadership contest. That rule was tightened at the 2021 party conference, raising the threshold from 10%. Beyond MP nominations, candidates must also secure 5% of constituency Labour parties or at least three affiliated organisations (two of which must be trade unions) with a combined membership of 5% of affiliated members. No challenger has yet stepped forward, and the prime minister made clear he intends to govern rather than entertain a transition timetable.
Three ministers quit as pressure mounts
The first resignation came on Tuesday morning from Communities Minister Miatta Fahnbulleh, who is close to Energy Secretary Ed Miliband. In her resignation letter, she said the message on the doorstep during the local elections was clear: “You, Prime Minister, have lost the trust and the confidence of the public.” She called on Starmer to “set a timetable for an orderly transition,” adding that she would “urge the prime minister to do the right thing for the country and the party.”
Fahnbulleh’s departure was swiftly followed by Jess Phillips, the Home Office minister responsible for safeguarding and a close ally of Streeting. Phillips wrote that she was not seeing “the change I think I, and the country expect” and that “opportunities for progress [were] stalled and delayed.” She said she wanted a Labour government to succeed but “cannot continue to serve as a minister under the current leadership.”
Within hours, Alex Davies-Jones, the minister for victims and tackling violence against women and girls, also quit, describing the local election results as “catastrophic” and urging Starmer to “set out a timetable for your departure.” Together, the three resignations reflect distinct factions inside the party: Fahnbulleh represents the left (and has publicly backed Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham as a potential successor), while Phillips and Davies-Jones come from the more centrist wing aligned with Streeting.
The pressure extended far beyond the junior ministers. At least 10 more MPs called for Starmer to go on Tuesday, bringing the total to more than 80—approaching but not yet reaching the 81‑MP threshold required to force a ballot. Allies said Starmer’s comments in cabinet were also aimed at Burnham, whose backers have urged the prime minister to step aside.
Streeting himself has said he will not initiate a contest but would join one if it were already taking place. That stance has drawn fury from within the cabinet. “Wes has got a brass neck,” one minister said. “He came into the room as though nothing had happened and acted entirely normally. Clearly some colleagues are absolutely furious with him. There were evil looks in his direction.” Another added: “Wes is showing that for all his ‘planning not plotting’ there is no plan. He said nothing in the room. The PM also made it clear, rightly, that it was not the forum for it. You can see from who is backing the PM straight afterwards that [Streeting] does not have cabinet support for a challenge.”
Cabinet closes ranks behind embattled leader
After the meeting, senior ministers publicly rallied behind Starmer, seeking to project unity and close down questions about his future. Work and Pensions Secretary Pat McFadden told reporters that nobody had challenged the prime minister in the room and that the government should “carry on” with its business. Technology Secretary Liz Kendall, speaking outside Downing Street, said: “The prime minister talked about the challenges we faced as a country, the crisis in the Middle East and the impact on the cost of living here. This government will do what we were elected to do, which is serve the British people. The prime minister has my full support in this.” She added: “There is a process to challenge the leader, nobody has made that challenge.”
Business Secretary Peter Kyle described the cabinet meeting as “very purposeful,” noting that “nothing has been triggered.” Defence Secretary John Healey posted on X: “People are worried about current conflicts and looming global crises. They expect their government to lead the country through, as the PM is doing. More instability is not in Britain’s interest. Our full focus now must be on dealing with immediate economic and security challenges.” Housing Secretary Steve Reed also publicly backed Starmer, urging him to fight on.
The Guardian understands that four senior cabinet ministers—Healey, Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood, Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper and Deputy Prime Minister David Lammy—spoke to Starmer on Monday. Some of them told the prime minister he should oversee an orderly transition of power after the crushing local election defeats. Others discussed how to take a “responsible, dignified, orderly” approach to what may follow. Several, including Hermer and Reed, urged him to stay and fight.
One cabinet minister said they believed there was relief among the “silent majority” of MPs who had not called for Starmer to go. “They had their heads in their hands yesterday. Now they feel rallied by Keir’s words and the cabinet rallying round.” Darren Jones, Starmer’s chief secretary, told reporters earlier that the prime minister was “listening to colleagues” who wanted a departure timetable but would make his own decisions. He warned potential rivals that the premiership was a “gruelling” job, adding: “Anybody who thinks that they can just walk into the job of prime minister and, like the second coming of the Messiah, fix all of our problems probably hasn’t really thought carefully enough about how difficult it is.”
Overnight, a handful of Labour MPs publicly declared their support for Starmer. Neil Coyle said he was “horrified at the elephant trap colleagues are falling into,” while Nick Smith argued: “A global security crisis and its economic impact on our country means we need political stability. Unity is strength.”
The current crisis is rooted in Labour’s electoral performance. The party won a landslide in the July 2024 general election, securing 411 seats and ending 14 years of Conservative rule, but its vote share was just 33.7%—the lowest of any governing party on record and the least proportional general election in British history, meaning two‑thirds of the electorate did not vote Labour. That weakness was laid bare in last week’s local elections across England and Wales, which were widely described as “disastrous” and “catastrophic.” Labour lost control of Wales for the first time in a century. Miatta Fahnbulleh said the message from voters was that the prime minister had “lost the trust and the confidence of the public.”
Starmer himself acknowledged the economic stakes, telling cabinet that the instability of the past two days carried “a real economic cost for our country and for families.” John Healey echoed that warning, saying “more instability is not in Britain’s interest.” With a global crisis in the Middle East already dominating the government’s agenda, the prime minister is betting that the party’s fear of another leadership upheaval will outweigh its appetite for change.
