Sir Keir Starmer has defiantly vowed to fight on as prime minister, telling Labour MPs he won’t “walk away” and that he’s won every fight he’s ever been in.
He was speaking at a crunch meeting of the Parliamentary Labour Party, as the fallout from his decision to appoint Lord Mandelson as UK ambassador to the US continues to reverberate as more revelations about the disgraced peer’s relationship with paedophile Jeffrey Epstein are revealed.
The prime minister refused to resign, saying: “I have had my detractors every step along the way, and I’ve got them now. Detractors that don’t want a Labour government at all, and certainly not one to succeed.
“After having fought so hard for the chance to change our country, I’m not prepared to walk away from my mandate and my responsibility to my country, or to plunge us into chaos as others have done.”
Sir Keir told MPs he had “won every fight I’ve ever been in”.
He said he’d “fought to change the Crown Prosecution Service so it better served victims of violence against women and girls”, and “fought to change the Labour Party to allow us to win an election again”.
“People told me I couldn’t do it. And then they gradually said, you might just get over the line.
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“We won with a landslide majority. Every fight I’ve been in, I have won,” the prime minister told Labour MPs.
It followed Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar calling for Sir Keir to resign. He told a news conference earlier in the afternoon that “failures at the heart of Downing Street” were affecting Scotland.
“That’s why the distraction needs to end. And the leadership in Downing Street has to change,” Mr Sarwar said.
But the cabinet rallied around the prime minister, all sharing messages of support for him.
Deputy Prime Minister David Lammy said Labour “should let nothing distract us from our mission to change Britain and we support the prime minister in doing that”. Chancellor Rachel Reeves said: “With Keir as our prime minister we are turning the country around.”
Health Secretary Wes Streeting – often viewed as a potential leadership challenger – also told Sky News he backed the Sir Keir, saying the government was a “team”.
Mr Streeting shared 14 months worth of WhatsApp and text exchanges he had with Lord Mandelson, saying he had “nothing to hide” after opponents had highlighted his links to the former ambassador.
Earlier in the day Downing Street director of communications Tim Allan – Sir Keir’s fourth since entering Number 10 – resigned from his role, saying he wanted to “allow a new Number 10 team to be built”.
Mr Allan was the second senior departure in less than 24 hours, after the prime minister’s chief of staff Morgan McSweeney resigned on Sunday afternoon.
Mr McSweeney said he was resigning to “take full responsibility” for advising Sir Keir to appoint Lord Mandelson as UK ambassador to the US.
The prime minister also told Labour MPs he took full responsibility for the “wrong” decision to appoint Lord Mandelson.
Sir Keir praised Mr McSweeney to Number 10 staff on Monday morning, saying the two of them had changed the Labour party and won a general election together.
“His dedication, his commitment and his loyalty to our party and our country was second to none. And I want to thank him for his service,” Sir Keir said.
