Sir Keir Starmer is clinging on to power with the support of key cabinet figures – even after being rocked by the departure of a second key aide, and public demands for his resignation by Labour’s own leader in Scotland.
The prime minister was supported by colleagues, including former deputy Angela Rayner, when previously loyal Anas Sarwar urged him to step down over the Mandelson scandal, saying he had made “too many mistakes”.
On a day of drama, the PM was also hit by the resignation of Downing Street director of communications Tim Allan, less than 24 hours after chief of staff Morgan McSweeney resigned.
But Sir Keir insisted: “I am going nowhere.”
As the embattled prime minister prepared to address the parliamentary Labour Party to save his premiership, leading pollsters suggested his departure had become “inevitable”.
It all appeared to be unravelling after the controversial aide, Mr McSweeney, stepped down on Sunday over his advice calling for the appointment of Lord Peter Mandelson as ambassador to the United States despite his ongoing association with convicted paedophile financier Jeffrey Epstein.
Mr Sarwar, whose Scottish Labour Party is trailing both Reform and the SNP ahead of crucial Holyrood elections in May, held a press conference to say Sir Keir should also now step down.
He said he was calling for his “friend” to resign “with a heavy heart”.
“The distraction needs to end, and the leadership in Downing Street has to change,” he told reporters.
“We cannot allow the failures at the heart of Downing Street to mean the failures continue here in Scotland, because the election in May is not without consequence for the lives of Scots.”
But almost as soon as he had spoken, health secretary Wes Streeting – once accused by Downing Street officials of plotting against the PM – said: “Give Keir a chance.”
Chancellor Rachel Reeves posted: “With Keir as our Prime Minister we are turning the country around.”
Deputy prime minister David Lammy added: “Keir Starmer won a massive mandate 18 months ago, for five years to deliver on Labour’s manifesto that we all stood on.”
As ministers lined up to pledge loyalty, former deputy prime minister Angela Rayner, another candidate to replace Sir Keir, also appealed for calm.
She said: “I urge all my colleagues to come together, remember our values and put them into practice as a team. The prime minister has my full support in leading us to that end.”
Labour grandee Alan Johnson warned that ditching the PM would “turn Labour and the country into an international laughing stock”.
But amid the febrile atmosphere in Westminster, one Labour MP said: “It’s over. It is just a matter of when, not if.”
A number of MPs on the Labour left have already described his position as “untenable”, and there were plans to heckle the prime minister at the Parliamentary Labour Party event on Monday evening.
Meanwhile, pollster Professor Sir John Curtice said: “We are at the stage where unplanned events could result in Keir Starmer going. It could be MPs going to the chief whip or, like Boris Johnson, at the end, one member of cabinet resigning, and that starts to precipitate.”
He suggested that one thing helping Sir Keir “is that there is no clear successor”.
He noted that Ms Rayner’s tax problems and ongoing HMRC investigation made it difficult for her to return immediately to government, while Mr Streeting has himself been damaged by the Mandelson scandal, and home secretary Shabana Mahmood “probably can’t even get the support of the 80 MPs to fight the contest”.
He speculated that Labour could return to a former leader, energy secretary Ed Miliband, because of a lack of options.
Meanwhile, another pollster, Lord Robert Hayward, said: “I’m becoming ever more convinced a change is inevitable but the Labour Party has got to the ‘we might as well try something else stage’ as the Conservative Party did.
A Downing Street spokesperson said: “Keir Starmer is one of only four Labour leaders ever to have won a general election. He has a clear five-year mandate from the British people to deliver change, and that is what he will do.”