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As Keir Starmer fights for his political life, the contest to replace him has already begun.
The prime minister was already under pressure when the Scottish Labour leader, Anas Sarwar, called for on Monday a change of prime minister. Sarwar’s comments followed the resignations from Downing Street of Morgan McSweeney, Starmer’s chief of staff, and Tim Allan, his communications director.
Now the revelation that a website claiming to launch a leadership campaign for Angela Rayner was briefly published last month has added to speculation about when the prime minister could go and who may replace him.
As the phoney war has gathered pace in recent weeks, allies of Rayner and the health secretary, Wes Streeting, have been taking aim at each other.
“Anyone that has any association with Peter Mandelson should be nowhere near government,” Steve Wright, the general secretary of the Fire Brigades Union, told the BBC on Sunday, in an apparent swipe at Streeting, who has long been close to the former Labour politician and diplomat.
Rosena Allin-Khan, the Labour MP for Tooting, told the same programme: “Of course, there are people in cabinet who need to question their own positions, because they were very close to people like Peter Mandelson. They may have known what was going on, who knows. But there are a couple in cabinet … and they know who they are.”
Allies of Streeting have hit back, accusing Rayner’s friends of trying to distract from her own political difficulties given tax officials are yet to decide whether the former deputy prime minister underpaid stamp duty when purchasing a flat in Hove last year.
“The truth is Wes wasn’t very close to Mandelson, their relationship has been wildly overwritten. It’s not like Wes was invited to his wedding,” one of the health secretary’s allies said.
Streeting insisted on Monday he was not pushing for the resignation of the prime minister, saying: “Keir Starmer doesn’t need to resign … Give Keir a chance.”
But the lack of a vacancy has not stopped allies of the leading candidates touting the credentials of their favoured contenders.
Friends of Rayner have told reporters she is “ready” to run should Starmer step down. One senior Labour figure recently told the Guardian: “Angela says she took the scars for Jeremy Corbyn, she took the scars for Keir Starmer, and so the next time she takes the scars it will be for herself.”
The Sunday Times quoted one friend of Rayner as saying MPs who were “frothing at the mouth” at the chance to install Streeting as leader were “mad because he has been damaged by association with Mandy [Mandelson]”.
Those close to Streeting accuse these Rayner allies of exacerbating divides within the party. One said over the weekend: “The Labour party is pretty sick of the toxic briefing culture in No 10 and will not want to bring in something even more nasty.”
Streeting and Rayner are not the only two potential candidates being talked about in Westminster. Some on the soft left of the party, who would normally be Rayner allies, are concerned about polls that show she is one of the least popular Labour figures with the public at large.
“A lot of her friends, people who know her well and love her, just think she is fundamentally unelectable,” one said.
The person suggested the deputy Labour leader, Lucy Powell, the energy secretary, Ed Miliband, or the defence secretary, John Healey, could all be alternative candidates.
Andy Burnham, the Greater Manchester mayor, has not given up hope of returning to the Commons, having been blocked from standing in the Gorton and Denton byelection. However, a leadership contest in the next few weeks will be too early for him given the party leader must be drawn from the ranks of sitting MPs.
Those close to Miliband say he does not want to lead the party again, having lost the 2015 election, though the Sun on Sunday quoted one Labour source as saying: “Ed is preparing to run again. He has told people, despite what he says when he is interviewed.”
Some in the party believe Shabana Mahmood, who has conservative social views but economic views on the left of the party, would be the best successor. Her standing among Labour members has been hit, however, by the tough stance she has taken on immigration as home secretary.
Others despair at the options from the top of the party as it stands and so are looking to the more junior ranks of recently elected MPs. One unlikely candidate being talked up by some among the 2024 intake is Al Carns, a former Royal Marines officer.
He has many admirers inside and outside the party. “Carns understands about building a team and could do certain things that most MPs couldn’t do,” one political expert recently said.
Unfortunately for Carns that expert was Boris Johnson’s former chief of staff Dominic Cummings.
