‘LABOUR could go extinct,’ Unite union leader Sharon Graham told the BBC’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg yesterday.
She said: ‘The way people have seen it is that Labour has abandoned the working class and the working class has now abandoned Labour in return.’
She warned: ‘Labour are now in a position where they could go extinct if they do not take a new direction.’
On Saturday, Labour MP Catherine West issued an ultimatum to Starmer’s cabinet, saying: ‘Challenge the PM, or I will.’
She said she has the support of 10 MPs, but will need at least 81 to challenge Starmer’s leadership.
West said Starmer’s Cabinet needs to ‘reflect on the result from Thursday, where the voters sent us a very strong message that we’re not good enough’.
She added that Labour has ‘a problem and have to move quickly’.
‘We need to install a new leader who can take us towards beating Reform in the general election to come, and give us a second term,’ she added.
Another Labour MP, Josh Simons, said: ‘I do not believe the Prime Minister can rise to this moment. He has lost the country. He should take control of the situation by overseeing an orderly transition to a new Prime Minister.’
West, whose ultimatum gave Starmer’s Cabinet ‘until Monday’, said she will listen to what Starmer has to say in his ‘key speech’ today, but if she is still dissatisfied then she’ll ‘put out a call for names’, paving the way for a leadership contest.
Clive Lewis, Labour MP for Norwich South, said that Starmer needs to set out a timetable for his departure and is ‘completely out of touch with reality’.
Labour MP for Leeds East Richard Burgon echoed Lewis’s remarks but stopped short of endorsing either Burnham or West.
In a post on social media, Burgon said West’s bid would be ‘a Cabinet stitch up – a kind of palace coup’, which he added would not be seen by the public as ‘a clean break’.
Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar says he is ‘absolutely’ staying in post after the party’s worst-ever Holyrood election results.
Clive Lewis, Labour MP for Norwich South, said that Starmer needs to set out a timetable for his departure and is ‘completely out of touch with reality’.
