Replacing Sir Keir Starmer as prime minister will solve none of the country’s problems, a Labour MP has said.
Southport Labour MP Patrick Hurley issued a powerful appeal to his party to “stick with Starmer”.
Far from making things better, removing Sir Keir could result in “destabilising” the government and lead to even greater economic difficulties.
Labour was in danger of making the same mistake as the last Conservatives administration who “did no good for the country” by replacing one prime minister after another.
In an interview with the BBC, the MP said: “The fundamentals will not change no matter who the prime minister is.
“We have got two globally significant wars raging that are impacting defence spending, public services… energy security and climate change.
“We have got levels of economic growth that have not been sufficiently high for well over 15 years. None of this is going to change if we change the person at the top of the tree. None of this is going to change just by having a new leader and prime minister.
“In fact it is probably going to get worse because destabilising your own government tends to drive bond yields even higher. No prime minister is going to be able to change that. We should stick with Keir Starmer.”
He also issued a warning to fellow Labour MPs plotting to replace him.
“These leadership people touting names around should be careful what they wish for.
“The domestic problems this country has got right now are more challenging than in the last 100 years – and things may only get worse if there is a change at the top.”
He continued: “The (financial) markets are going to look at the stability of the government… the ability to repay borrowing we have already incurred, excessive amounts of borrowing under the previous government due to Covid and other issues.
“If we start making changes now the rates those markets charge us will be even higher. There will be even less room to manoeuvre to improve our public services.
“The one challenge we have got as a government is to get our economic performance back up to a decent standard in order to better fund our public services and do all the good Labour things we want to do.
“And we won’t be able to do that if we continue with the destabilisation we saw with Boris Johnson, Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak and a whole litany of Conservative prime ministers who came and went and did no good for the country.
“The last thing we should do is tear a leaf out of their book.”
