The Prime Minister reportedly received a standing ovation and applause as he entered the room to speak to Labour MPs.
Keir Starmer told a crucial meeting of the Parliamentary Labour Party last night that he was ‘not prepared to walk away’, after a dramatic day in Westminster that saw the Scottish Labour Leader Anas Sarwar call for him to step down.
Speculation concerning the Prime Minister’s future had intensified in recent days after his judgement was questioned over the appointment of Peter Mandelson as UK ambassador to the US, despite his links to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
The Prime Minister has said that Mandelson lied to him and his team over his relationship with Epstein and over the weekend, his chief of staff, Morgan McSweeney resigned.
After Sarwar called on the Prime Minister to resign, the entire Cabinet expressed their support for Starmer, as did senior Labour figures such as Sadiq Khan, Angela Rayner and Lucy Powell.
Speaking to a meeting of the Parliamentary Labour Party on Monday night, just hours after Labour’s leader in Scotland demanded he quit, Sir Keir came out fighting.
The Prime Minister reportedly received a standing ovation and applause as he entered the room to speak to Labour MPs.
He told the meeting: “I have had my detractors every step along the way, and I’ve got them now – detractors that don’t want a Labour government at all, and certainly not one to succeed.
“After having fought so hard for the chance to change our country, I’m not prepared to walk away from my mandate and my responsibility to my country, or to plunge us into chaos as others have done.”
He went on to add that he had “won every fight I’ve ever been in”, from changing the Crown Prosecution Service “so it better served victims of violence against women and girls”, to making the Labour Party electable again.
Basit Mahmood is editor of Left Foot Forward
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