The Prime Minister said he ‘ended the week much stronger’ than he started it and vowed to lead Labour into the polls at the next election amid the fallout from the Mandelson scandal
Keir Starmer has vowed to lead Labour into the next general election – but admitted that appointing Peter Mandelson as US ambassador was a “mistake”. The Prime Minister has seen his authority rocked in recent weeks amid controversy over the past appointments of Mandelson and Lord Matthew Doyle, who was suspended from the party due to concerns over his links with a convicted sex offender.
This has been accompanied by a slew of high-profile departures from Downing Street, including the resignation of chief of staff Morgan McSweeney, who had advised Starmer to appoint Mandelson back in 2024.
But a lone call from the Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar for him to resign this week saw senior party figures – including Angela Rayner – come out in support of the PM, who led Labour to a 411-seat election victory less than two years ago.
Speaking to reporters at the Munich Security Conference, Keir came out fighting – and said he would “absolutely” be the man to lead his party the next time the nation goes to the polls. He told the Sun on Sunday: “I won the leadership of the Labour Party when people said I wouldn’t. I changed the Labour Party when people said I couldn’t. I won an election when people said we wouldn’t. “And now I intend to change the country – whatever other people say.”
Elsewhere in the interview, the Prime Minister was asked if appointing Lord Mandelson as US ambassador was his biggest mistake since he took office. He replied: “I’m not going to list mistakes in rank order. It was a mistake.”
Speaking at the conference, Keir had earlier insisted he “ended the week much stronger” than he started it after a period of political turbulence. He was asked in a panel discussion after his speech whether the turmoil left him vulnerable to challenges from Reform UK and the Tories. The Labour leader replied: “No, I reject that. I ended the week much stronger than I started it.
“And that’s a very good place to be, and my party and my government is completely united on the question of Ukraine and defence and security and the need for stronger relations with Europe on defence, on security and on economy as well. And so I think that there is real strength in the position I’ve now set out.” Attacking Nigel Farage’s “pro-Putin” Reform UK party, Keir suggested it was the only faction in the House of Commons not behind the UK’s support for Ukraine. Imagine if they were in government in the United Kingdom.
“The Coalition of the Willing could not exist without UK participation in it. We would not be seen as a leader on the European or international stage. “We would be seen as a country that people couldn’t do business with.” So it’s not universal across our Parliament, but there’s a very strong feeling amongst right-minded politicians that we stick together on Ukraine.” Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar had said on Monday that the Prime Minister should quit in the wake of the scandal around the appointment of Lord Mandelson as British ambassador to Washington despite his links to paedophile Jeffrey Epstein.
But the attempt to oust Keir failed, with members of the Cabinet publicly backing the Prime Minister in the hours after Mr Sarwar’s statement. Later in the week, Starmer came in for further criticism over the appointment of his former spin doctor Lord Doyle to the House of Lords, after the aide campaigned for a paedophile councillor. The departure of the head of the Civil Service Sir Chris Wormald prompted criticism of negative briefings in Government, while senior Labour women suggested the string of scandals had exposed a “boys’ club” within Downing Street. Sir Chris was the third senior figure to quit the Government in the past week, following Sir Keir’s chief of staff Morgan McSweeney and communications director Tim Allan.
