How easy would it be for Labour MPs to force Starmer out?

Many have said that the Mandelson saga is the biggest political scandal to hit Britain since the Profumo affair more than 60 years ago – if not ever. This may be historically inaccurate, and the media speculation overheated, but that doesn’t detract from the fact that Labour MPs, already frustrated by a series of missteps, resignations and U-turns, have been shaken by the Epstein revelations, and are deeply angry with the prime minister. The talk about getting rid of him is, not for the first time, building.

Not necessarily – but it’s not over. Of course, a smart alec would point out that the resignation in 1963 of a senior cabinet minister, John Profumo, for lying to the Commons and sharing a girlfriend with the Soviet military attache didn’t actually bring the then prime minister down, and may not even have endangered UK national security. However, Harold Macmillan, like Keir Starmer today, was made to look a fool for gullibly believing the assurances given to him by an old and valued colleague – which turned out to be lies.

In any case, Macmillan was gone within the year, a medical emergency providing a convenient “out”. Scandals comparable in scale that have threatened premierships since would include the Westland affair (Margaret Thatcher, 1986), the “dodgy dossier” and subsequent Iraq war (Tony Blair, 2003 and after), and Partygate (Boris Johnson, 2021-22). The scandals surrounding Jeremy Thorpe (1976-79), the Iraqi Supergun (1990) and MPs’ expenses (2009) didn’t much impinge on No 10.

What may actually finish Starmer off (as with Johnson) are the undoubtedly damaging, profane and even shocking contents of emails, text messages and WhatsApp conversations soon to be released under parliamentary order. If Starmer is found to have knowingly misled the Commons, even he might admit he’ll have to go.

Yes, and it’s relatively easy, at least in principle and in the current circumstances. All they would need is a fifth of the parliamentary Labour Party – 80 MPs – to commit to a challenge and be willing to have their names published all in one go. At that point, others could enter the contest, providing they too garnered the necessary 80. Logically there could be no more than five candidates (assuming the groups of 80 can’t nominate more than one contender each). If that happened, Starmer could just quit, but he has the right to fight without necessarily having to be nominated.

Then the members would decide in one ballot who was to be the new leader, through a system of preferential voting. It would be the first time that the Labour membership would have selected a new prime minister (the Tory grassroots having chosen two – Johnson and Truss).

Starmer can plead that his colleagues should await what the parliamentary Intelligence and Security Committee says about the Mandelson files. That work will take several months. This potentially buys time, but then there’s the Gorton and Denton by-election in three weeks, and the almost-nationwide elections in May, to contend with. Plus potentially more leaks from the Epstein and/or Mandelson files.

There’s no obvious consensual successor, as there was the last time this happened – in 2007, when Gordon Brown was elected unopposed to succeed Tony Blair. Angela Rayner is still under investigation by HMRC, so not quite “ready”. It’s also unclear whether Shabana Mahmood, Wes Streeting and Ed Miliband would be prepared to serve under each other if one of them won. The party might turn to more of a compromise candidate, as yet unfancied but without loads of enemies and baggage, for a fresher start – John Healey, Hilary Benn or Dan Jarvis, perhaps.

It would be tricky to get Andy Burnham into the Commons in time – the NEC dictates the leadership election timetable, and as we’ve seen, it’s controlled by Starmer.

Of course not. He could be forced out as leader to create a vacancy. A delegation of senior figures from across the Labour movement could tell him his time was up, privately or publicly.

It could be that if a couple of senior and respected cabinet colleagues were to quit and call for him to go, that would create an unstoppable momentum – as when Rishi Sunak and Sajid Javid abruptly left Johnson’s administration and it eventually collapsed beneath his feet. Or more junior ministers could successively quit, signalling a more powerful revolt to come, as Blair was threatened with. Or Starmer could be forced to consult the cabinet collectively – or, as Margaret Thatcher ended up doing, individually – at some stage.

The parliamentary party could find an informal but effective way to organise a vote of no confidence in their leader – 203 plus would indicate a majority unprepared to support him.

Unlikely, but there is a rumour that Kemi Badenoch might try to get disaffected Labour MPs to join her in some vote of no confidence in the prime minister. This would be in Starmer personally rather than His Majesty’s government, because the latter would trigger a general election – which no Labour MP wants.

Badenoch is working on the basis of the constitutional convention that a prime minister must command a majority in the Commons. Ed Davey has already called for such a vote of confidence. If all the opposition parties combined, and say, 100 Labour rebels joined in, that would end the Starmer premiership. In fact, by the time it came to that, he’d certainly be gone.