The fallout for Starmer is snowballing. MPs, unions, and Labour groups are coming out with scathing criticism…
Rayner has gleefully weighed in:
“This result must be a wake up call. It’s time to really listen – and to reflect. Voters want the change that we promised – and they voted for. If we want to unrig the system, if we want to make the change we were sent into Government to make, we have to be braver.
A labour agenda that puts people first. That’s what all of us across our movement need to rededicate ourselves to this morning.”
Labour MP Jon Trickett told Times Radio the PM “needs to reflect on his own position.” Karl Turner – practically screaming down the phone on the Today Programme – said he begged Starmer not to block Andy Burnham and that the party needs to shift policy radically with a wealth tax. Usual suspects Nadia Whittome, Richard Burgon, and Andy McDonald attacked Starmer for not being left wing enough…
Then come the unions. Sharon Graham, Unite general secretary, said:
“If Labour needed any further wake up calls – this is clearly one. Labour need to now ditch the gimmicks and get back to being Labour – not new, not one that plays games, but real Labour.
Workers and families are hurting. We have a cost of living crisis largely being ignored and investment in jobs for the here-and-now being blocked by a Treasury that doesn’t seem to understand the basics of what is needed to build Britain.
Stop listening your rich mates and start listening to everyday people.”
Andrea Egan, leading Unison, said Starmer is “failing on every count”:
“If the government wants to survive, it urgently needs to stand up for workers and defend our fundamental values.”
And Steve Wright of the Fire Brigades Union:
“If the government does not change course immediately, it will face heavy losses in the May elections, and at that point, the political consequences for Keir Starmer will become unavoidable.”
The Burnham-backing Labour group Mainstream said:
“Our leader and sections of the NEC blocked the one candidate who could have won it for us. That decision now looks like a catastrophic error. We need an immediate and fundamental reset now.“
A dour Harriet Harman called the result “bruising” on her podcast with Beth Rigby. Time to crack out that emergency reshuffle?
UPDATE: Labour MP Neil Duncan-Jordan told Times Radio this afternoon that if Keir Starmer “is seen as a block” to people voting Labour, then from an “electoral strategic view, you have to remove that block.”
Asked about warnings of a civil war in an interview with The House, Reform MP Danny Kruger said:
“Yeah. The only chance of unity for our country is Reform. If we don’t win, or if we win and then make a mess of it, I do fear for our country.”