Starmer latest: PM defies leadership ultimatum and calls to resign with revival plan for closer EU ties

The Labour MP who has issued an ultimatum on Sir Keir Starmer’s leadership has told a cabinet minister directly to challenge the prime minister.

Catherine West has called on the cabinet to put a candidate forward to replace Sir Keir by Monday, or else she would launch her own bid.

Speaking directly to Bridget Phillipson on Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg, she said: “There’s nothing stopping Bridget from standing.

“Why are the all the men better than the women? We do need some senior women to step forward and to challenge for what is going to be really difficult two and a half years between now and the general election, and also to take us into that second term.”

The education secretary replied: “I love you dearly, Catherine, but I just disagree on this one.”

Bridget Phillipson has stood firm on her support for Sir Keir Starmer lead Labour into the next general election, despite the party having suffered brutal defeats across the country this week.

The education secretary was asked whether the prime minister will lead the party into the next general elections, and whether that is something she would want. She told Sky News: “Yes on both counts.”

She was also asked about the prospect of a cabinet reshuffle, which has been rumoured in recent days.

“I’m not aware that there will be a reshuffle, but those are, of course, matters for the prime minister,” she said.

Bridget Phillipson has been asked what she thinks the government’s biggest mistakes have been so far.

The education secretary gave a surprisingly direct answer, telling Sky News that changes to the winter fuel allowance “caused us real damage early on”.

She went on to say that the government had been “too gloomy and too negative early on”, which she said “embedded a sense of gloom”.

“People knew the country was in a mess,” she said. “They didn’t need us to remind them in such detail that the country was in a mess… They wanted us to focus on what we as a government were going to deliver.”

Education minister Bridget Phillipson has said she felt “sick to the bottom of [her] stomach” after seeing the scale of Labour’s electoral defeat this week.

Sir Keir Starmer is facing calls to resign over the defeat, which saw the party lose control of swathes of historical strongholds.

Speaking about Catherine West’s leadership ultimatum, Ms Phillipson said: “Catherine, like lots of other colleagues and like lots of candidates who stood in the elections that we’ve just had, are really hurting this morning.

“And I feel that. Friday morning, I felt absolutely sick to the bottom of my stomach about the scale of the defeat that we’d suffered. And we got a real kicking, from the voters. There’s there’s no escaping that. And we have to seriously reflect on that.”

Bridget Phillipson has claimed Sir Keir Starmer “didn’t come up” as much as “people might imagine” while speaking to voters on the doorstep.

The education secretary described a difficult conversation she had with a voter ahead of the election on Thursday, but said Starmer’s leadership didn’t come up.

Asked if this was true, she told Sky News: “Genuinely, sincerely, no.”Now, I’m not saying that Keir Starmer’s leadership did never come up, but actually not as much as people might imagine.

“What did come up, what did come up a lot was policing, GP appointments, why aren’t waiting lists coming down faster?”

A cabinet minister has backed Sir Keir Starmer as she sought to play down Catherine West’s leadership ultimatum.

The Labour MP called on the cabinet to have a meeting to put a candidate to replace Sir Keir by Monday, or else she would launch her own bid.

Asked when this meeting would be happening, education secretary Bridget Phillipson told Sky News: “Catherine is a great colleague, and I’ve known her a long time, and I have real respect for Catherine.

“On this one, I do part company with her. I think she’s got this completely wrong.”

Asked if she thought Ms West could get the 80 names needed to trigger a contest, she said: “I don’t think that will happen.”

We’re about to hear from a cabinet minister on what is an incredibly tense moment for Sir Keir Starmer’s premiership.

Education secretary Bridget Phillipson will be speaking on various shows this morning, as she answers questions on the mounting calls for the prime minister to resign.

Catherine West, the MP who issued an ultimatum on Saturday for cabinet members to challenge Sir Keir, will also be speaking this morning.

The former junior Foreign Office minister said the cabinet needed to put forward their “best communicator” to replace the prime minister by Monday, or else she would seek the 80 names needed to trigger a contest.

The prime minister has laid out his plans to respond to a disastrous showing in the local elections, vowing he would lead Labour into the next general election.

He said he would be “full-throated” about the need for closer ties with Brussels as he sought to win back his wavering MPs and address the drift of voters from Labour to the Greens in many former strongholds in London and cities across England.

The Independent’s Dan Haygarth reports:

The election results have revealed stark differences in how the parties fared in the capital compared with the rest of England.

Labour successfully defended a higher percentage of its seats than it did elsewhere, while Reform UK won a much lower proportion of seats in which it stood candidates than it managed outside London, according to Press Association analysis.

Sir Keir Starmer’s party has won 67 per cent of the council seats in the capital that it held just before the elections took place.

This compares with a win rate of 30 per cent for seats it defended outside London.

Reform has won just 5 per cent of the seats in the capital in which it fielded candidates, compared with a rate of 43 per cent for the seats it contested across the rest of England.

Other parties have seen contrasting fortunes inside and outside the capital, with the Greens winning 19 per cent of seats in London, in which it stood candidates, higher than the 10% it managed in the rest of England.

The Conservatives won 46 per cent of the seats they defended outside London, while the party saw a net increase of 6 per cent in its number of councillors in the capital compared with just before polling day.

Labour MP Catherine West has called on members of Sir Keir Starmer’s cabinet to challenge him for the leadership, warning that she will do so herself if they fail to step up.

She told The Independent that the party needs “to take on Reform and put forward a centrist vision of the country that people can really get behind”.

Labour Party rules state that a leadership election will only take place if the prime minister resigns or if 20 per cent of the party nominate a candidate to replace them.

That means 81 MPs would need to back a challenger. West has said she will seek another 80 names to trigger a contest if no one from the cabinet does so.

But as of now, West says she has only 10 MPs willing to back her. She has nonetheless said she is “confident” others will come forward if needed.