Keir Starmer under pressure to resign as Prime Minister of Britain
By Stephen Castle
LONDON – The leader of the Scottish Labour Party, Anas Sarwar, urged Prime Minister Keir Starmer to stand down on Monday (9), intensifying pressure on the British leader over his role in making Peter Mandelson the ambassador to the United States despite his close ties to Jeffrey Epstein.
“I have to be honest about failing wherever I see it,” Sarwar said at a news conference in Glasgow, Scotland. “There have been too many mistakes.”
While not a member of the Cabinet, Sarwar is the most senior figure in Starmer’s Labour movement so far to call on him to quit, deepening a crisis within the government that threatens the prime minister’s grip on power.
Starmer had fired Mandelson from his diplomatic post in the United States in September, citing new information about his contacts with Epstein. But thousands of pages of additional emails released as part of the latest tranche of Epstein files on January 30 revealed a much closer friendship than Mandelson had acknowledged. The messages suggested that Mandelson, while in a senior government role in 2009, passed on confidential and market-sensitive information to Epstein on several occasions.
Sarwar is a well-known figure within the party and, before the last general election in 2024, appeared on course to lead Labour to victory in elections to the Scottish Parliament in May. But the government’s loss of popularity nationally under Starmer’s leadership has damaged the Labour Party in Scotland, which now trails in the opinion polls well behind the Scottish National Party.
In response to Sarwar’s call, a succession of Cabinet ministers posted social media messages voicing their loyalty to Starmer, in an attempt to stabilize his position. John Healey, Britain’s defence secretary, said Starmer had “my fullest support in leading this government and this country,” while Rachel Reeves, Britain’s top finance official, said that “we are turning the country around” with Starmer.
Sarwar called Starmer “a decent man” but said the turmoil in Downing Street has become a “huge distraction”. He said he was not part of a plan to oust the prime minister and that there had been “no coordination” with others.
“It’s for those in No. 10, those around the Cabinet table and those in the UK Labour Party to decide what comes next,” Sarwar said.
Here’s what else to know:
— Starmer aides resign: Tim Allan, Starmer’s director of communications, resigned Monday, adding to a sense of crisis for the government. Allan, a longtime friend of Mandelson’s who worked with him when Tony Blair was prime minister in the 1990s, quit less than 24 hours after Morgan McSweeney stepped down as Starmer’s chief of staff.
— Financial markets reaction: Reflecting the political uncertainty, the yield on Britain’s 10-year government bonds rose 0.07 percentage points, to 4.58%, on Monday. Investors tend to sell Britain’s government bonds, pushing up borrowing costs, when there are signs of political risk. Some investors have concerns that a new Labour leader from the left of the party could loosen the government’s fiscal policy and make it harder to bring down the country’s heavy debt burden.
-New York Times
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