Four ministers resigned from Keir Starmer's government on Tuesday, including Home Office minister Jess Phillips, who called on the prime minister to step down. Phillips said she had grown tired of seeing “opportunities for progress stalled and delayed”. The resignations bring the number of Labour MPs publicly calling for Starmer to quit to more than 80, following dire local and devolved election results last week.
Phillips, a close ally of Health Secretary Wes Streeting, wrote in her resignation letter: “I think you are a good man fundamentally, who cares about the right things, however I have seen first-hand how that is not enough.” She cited delays in legislating to tackle online child sexual abuse as an example of the government's failure to act boldly.
Miatta Fahnbulleh, the communities minister, was the first to resign, urging Starmer to “set a timetable for an orderly transition”. Alex Davies-Jones, minister for victims and tackling violence against women, and Zubir Ahmed, a health minister, also quit. Ahmed cited a “lack of values-driven leadership” and said the public had “irretrievably lost confidence” in the prime minister.
Starmer told his cabinet earlier on Tuesday that he would fight on, saying the threshold for a leadership challenge had not been met. Several ministers, including Pat McFadden and Liz Kendall, publicly rallied behind him. However, senior cabinet members such as Shabana Mahmood, Yvette Cooper, John Healey, and David Lammy reportedly urged Starmer to oversee an orderly transition of power.
Darren Jones, Starmer's chief secretary, said the prime minister was “listening to colleagues” but would make his own decisions. The Labour Party faces a deepening crisis as the scale of electoral defeats in England, Wales, and Scotland has sparked widespread calls for a change in leadership.
