Steve Reed urged Labour colleagues on Friday to put the country first and party second as he rejected talk of a leadership challenge to Keir Starmer, saying there was no move to oust the prime minister. Speaking to Sky News, the and Times Radio, Reed said Labour should unite behind Starmer and focus on delivering change faster.
Reed described Starmer as unpopular, but said that was not unusual in modern British politics. “Each of the last four prime ministers, in turn, has been the most unpopular prime minister we’ve ever had,” he said, adding that the party needed to avoid “internal-facing nonsense” and concentrate on government instead of infighting.
The minister was trying to close down a week of speculation that has unsettled Labour after Andy Burnham was handed a route back towards Westminster. Pressure on Starmer has grown as party figures weigh the fallout from that move, with concern in the leadership that the row is feeding a wider sense of drift just as Labour is trying to project discipline from Downing Street.
Reed insisted reports that Starmer was considering his position were wrong. Asked on the about the possibility of nominations being gathered for any challenge, he said: “If people wanted to gather the nominations then it’s open for them to do that – they would need to find enough Labour MPs that wanted to endorse them but nobody has done that.” On Times Radio, he said reports suggesting Starmer was weighing his future “that isn’t true”.
He also sought to draw a line under the row by saying Labour would not copy the turbulence that dogged the Conservatives. “The Labour party will not copy the chaos we saw under the Conservatives,” he said, before adding: “It’s been a very difficult week but we need to take a breath now, take this weekend to reflect on what’s going on, and come back next week and focus on the country we were elected to serve.”
The immediate flashpoint is Makerfield, where Labour MP Josh Simons said on Thursday that he would stand down from his constituency to make way for Burnham to stand as a candidate in a byelection. Simons said he believed Burnham could “drive the change our country is crying out for” and argued that Labour had lost the trust of voters it was built to serve. Lucy Powell later said there would be no attempt to stop Burnham from fighting the upcoming byelection, saying the party needed to come back together as one team and take the fight to Nigel Farage.
Powell said Burnham had expressed a desire to return to parliament and should be part of the team trying to pull Labour together. Her comments made clear that the argument inside the party is no longer just about one seat in Makerfield. It is about whether Labour can calm the internal pressure around Starmer before tomorrow’s major protests in London add another layer of strain to Downing Street.
For now, Reed is trying to project control. But the fact that senior Labour figures are openly discussing Burnham, party unity and the threat from Farage shows the problem has not gone away. The leadership challenge Reed denies may not have started, but the conditions for one are already being discussed in public.
