Starmer urged to condemn Elon Musk’s ‘fight back or die’ speech to London rally as Labour MPs question his leadership
Good morning. All governments face crises; something goes wrong, often someone gets sacked, and then they move on. Very occasionally, there is a proper leadership challenge, normally culminating in a vote. But there is also something in between, the permacrisis, where ongoing criticism of the leadership drowns out most other party/government activity, with no resolution. The Theresa May and Boris Johnson premiership were in permacrisis for months or years. After the last week, Keir Starmer is close to being stuck in this version of political purgatory too.
There are various strands to the Labour turmoil story, and I will unpack them as the day goes on, but here is a quick summary based on the state of play this morning.
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Starmer is under intense pressure to explain what he knew ahead of PMQs last week about the emails from Peter Mandelson in which Mandelson strongly backed Jeffrey Epstein at the time of his first child sex offence conviction. The Tories have demanded an explanation in response to reports that officials did know full details before PMQs, even though Starmer subsequently justified defending Mandelson on Wednesday before sacking him on Thursday on the grounds that new information (ie, the full details of the emails) only came to light on Wednesday night. This claim has made the Mail splash.
This morning Kemi Badenoch posted this on social media.
If the PM really believes in accountability, he would stop hiding, face Parliament, publish the Mandelson/Epstein files and tell the truth about what he and his Chief of Staff knew and when.
It’s time to deliver the “transparency revolution” he promised. No more excuses.
The Mandelson/Epstein affair is a self-contained crisis. But, coming so soon after the resignation of Angela Rayner, and coming after a summer when No 10 was decisively beaten in the media attention air war by Nigel Farage and Reform UK, it has tipped the parliamentary Labour party into a panic about the Starmer leadership. That led to this on the Today programme this morning.
Lots of MPs are looking to the elections next May, the opinion polls suggest it’s going to be a complete disaster unfortunately. I think it’s inevitable that if May’s elections go as people predict, and the opinion polls predict, then I think Starmer will be gone at that time.
It feels like we are years and years into an unpopular government, rather than a year into a government that’s just got rid of the Conservatives. We’re losing votes to the left, we’re going to be losing seats to the right.
We face a real threat for the first time in our country’s history of what I would consider to be a far-right extremist government – it’s the prime minister’s duty to stop that happening. You can only do that by delivering for people who want real change, and if you can’t do that, then of course, there’s going to have to be change at the very top.
Burgon is one of the few Corbynites left in the PLP, and he is not representative. But, as Pippa Crerar and Jessica Elgot reported in a very thorough long-read at the weekend, serious conversations are now happening in the parliamentary party about how Starmer could be replaced.
But there is some evidence that Starmer is fighting back. Yesterday, showing a bit more willingness to take on the far-right over flags than we saw over the summer, Starmer condemned the use of the St George’s flag by the far-right, anti-immigration protesters who attacked the police in London on Saturday.
Starmer is now being urged to go further.
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Starmer is being urged to condemn Elon Musk for his “fight back or die” speech to the far-right rally in London. The Lib Dem leader Ed Davey has issued this challenge to the PM in an open letter published on social media.
In January, when Musk was using posts on his social media platform X to accuse Starmer on an almost hourly basis of being “complicit in the rape of Britain” (because of grooming gangs), Starmer just ignored the billionaire, far-right provocateur. But at that point Musk was friends with Donald Trump, and a key figure in his administration. Now that Musk has fallen out with the president, Starmer may feel more comfortable denouncing him. We should be hearing from him later today, but this morning a minister has criticised Musk.
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Jacqui Smith, the skills minister, has condemned Musk for his speech to the far-right rally in London on Saturday. Musk told the crowd that “violence is coming” and that “you either fight back or you die”. Asked if she condemned those words, Smith told the Today programme:
Absolutely I do. Those words were wrong and they were dangerous.
We’re a country that believes in the right to protest and the right to free speech, but we’re also a country that recognises and celebrates our diversity. That’s what our flag is actually about.
We will not have on our streets people being intimidated on the basis of their race or their background.
Smith was referrring to the fact that the union jack is a composite flag, made up of flags from three nations, thereby celebrating union, and the multi-national character of the UK.
Here is the agenda for the day.
Morning: Kemi Badenoch is on a visit in Hampshire.
11am: Nigel Farage, the Reform UK leader, holds a press conference, where the party says there will be “a major announcement”.
11.30am: Downing Street holds a lobby briefing.
2.30pm: Shabana Mahmood takes questions in the Commons for the first time in her new role as home secretary,
Afternoon: Keir Starmer is expected to record a pooled broadcast interview.
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