Amid all the backstabbing and plotting in Britain’s beleaguered Labour Party, one crucial fact can easily become lost in the twists and turns of the saga – embattled Prime Minister Keir Starmer has not even faced a formal challenge to his leadership yet.
Instead, he is facing a slow-motion coup that could drag on for weeks, with no guarantee that the many Labour MPs who want him to be replaced as PM will succeed. In the meantime, Britain will be adrift in leadership limbo.
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Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch taunted Starmer last week, declaring: “The PM has shown he is in office but not in power.”
This was a deliberate echo of what former chancellor Norman Lamont told Conservative Prime Minister John Major in 1993 in one of many bouts of infighting in the Tory party over the decades.
The Conservatives have traditionally been far more efficient at challenging their prime ministers than Labour. Margaret Thatcher, who won three successive elections and dominated British politics in the 1980s, was forced out in 1990, and was photographed weeping as she was driven away from Downing Street.
Her successor, John Major, launched a challenge against himself in 1995, resigning as party leader although not as prime minister, and challenging his critics to “put up or shut up”. He resoundingly won the ensuing leadership ballot.
Theresa May faced a confidence vote in 2018, triggered by her opponents in the party. Although she won it, the number of MPs who voted against her profoundly undermined her authority and she resigned six months later with a tearful statement. Post by aljazeera