Anand Menon: Kings College Professor of European Politics on the growing number of Labour MPs calling for Keir Starmer's resignation

A growing number of British Labour MPs are calling for Sir Keir Starmer to resign, but no one is formally challenging his leadership. 

More than 65 MPs are publicly calling for him to resign or set out a timetable for departure. 

Four have quit as ministerial aides. 

But Kings College Professor of European Politics Anand Menon told Mike Hosking no one knows who will be the Prime Minister when this is over. 

He says it's deeply destructive and shows a lack of decisiveness amongst senior MPs, with none of them willing to throw their hat in the ring. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
What looks like Saki Starmer's survive for now the Catherine
Wist challenge turned into a call for an orderly transition
of sorts. But the numbers keep rising. This morning we're
up to sixty two now and some ministerial aids have
gone as well, and aarn men and as the professor
of European Politics and Foreigner Fears at King's College in London,
and as well us morning to you morning, how are
you doing very well? And do what do you make
of the sixty two encounting? Do they get to the

(00:21):
magic eighty something and then anything happens or not?

Speaker 2 (00:25):
I mean, the problem is no one knows, and it's
painstakingly slow, and it's very deliberate, and the country meanwhile
is watching this psychodrama without knowing who are prime minister
is going to be in a few weeks time. So
it's it's just deeply destructive and smacks of, I think
mainly a lack of decisiveness. Amongst Keir Starmer's putative successes,

(00:46):
none of whom have been willing to stand up and
say I'm going to throw my hat in the ring.

Speaker 1 (00:50):
Was has maya culpa any good? In your view?

Speaker 2 (00:54):
No? Because it wasn't that much of a mayor culper.
It was a diagnosis of the problems that he knew
the country when he came to power in twenty twenty four,
and I think what people expected from him today was
some sense of urgency and some indication of what was
going to be done about them, and we got none
of that. So I think in a sense it was
a bit of a damp squib and I think the
number ten will look back at a weekend building up

(01:15):
this speech as as some turning point in the Starma premiership.
There's a bit of mistake.

Speaker 1 (01:20):
Okay. So if Andy Burnham was in power, it were
in Parliament as an MP, would it be different. I
just find it had to believe there's four hundred and
two of them they can't find a single challenger.

Speaker 2 (01:32):
Well, I mean that is the case that there are
four hundred two of them and they can't find a
challenge that they can agree on. If Andy Burnham was
in parliament it would be different, yes, because he is
the one politician who has decent approval ratings. I mean,
we live in an age where basically our politicians compete
not as to who is the most popular, but who's
the least unpopular, and he is the least unpopular at

(01:54):
the moment, so yes, it would make a difference. But
what's weird is now you have a bunch of MPs
in Parliament desperately trying to stall this process, not because
they want Kirs Starmer to stay, but they want to
find enough times somehow to let Andy Burnham run in
a by election, win the by election, come back into
Parliament and then stand as leader. So it's a slightly

(02:14):
surreal situation.

Speaker 1 (02:15):
If you took a great British pound and placed it
on whether Starmer would lead the Labor government into the
twenty twenty nine general election, that pound would go which way?

Speaker 2 (02:25):
Now you'd lose it. I'm pretty sure you'd lose it.
I think even before the local elections last week there
was a consensus amongst Labor MPs that Kirs Starmer shouldn't
lead them into the next election. I think now there's
a building consensus that he needs to go as soon
as possible because I think their experience on the doorstep,
plus Starmer's popularity ratings, and Starmer is now I think

(02:46):
pretty much the most unpopular prime minister we've ever had
have convinced them that actually they need to have a
change at the top. Now it's worth saying, you know,
Starmer's unpopularity ratings are strange in the sense that whatever
you say about him, he's not sort of egregiously bad
in the way that some of our previous prime ministers
have been. I think Kirstamar is paying the price for

(03:07):
twenty years of sluggish economic growth in this country and
the British people are just getting fed up.

Speaker 1 (03:11):
Just give me thirty seconds on reform. Are they the
real deal or are they just behind this Farage bloke
who makes a lot of noise and people are aggrieved
at the moment about them.

Speaker 2 (03:20):
Well, I mean, I turn that round. Nigel Farage is
the real deal in the fact, in the sense that
he's a very good communicator. People like him, people think
he's authentic. Without him, I wonder where reform would be.
The big challenge for them is to hold together what
is now a slightly bigger electoral coalition and to turn
themselves into a professional political party populace to struggle with
that in the past. Who We're going to have to

(03:40):
see if they can manage that task.

Speaker 1 (03:42):
Nice to talk to you appreciate it very much an An Menon,
who's the Professial of European Politics and Foreign Afairs at
King's College in London.

Speaker 2 (03:48):
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