Is Starmer going tonight?! (Thread for centre and left of centre folk)

This is not the time to change leaders especially for personal ambition. Burnham is not an MP, Raynor has a target in her back because of her tax affairs, Streeting hasn’t got the party behind him. Lurching from crisis to crisis is not great but labour need to stop in fighting and work together.

It's frankly embarrasing as nation that we keep removing leader's before they've completed a full term. It makes us look like a shaky, ramshackle little island. Starmer waan't even my first choice during the Labour leadership content, and many things in this government have blown my mind (making your first action as new gov to remove winter fuel allowance for many? Madness) but we have periodic elections! When we did decide the leadership of a nation is something we can change like underwear?

I hope he stays. No one else in labour will do any better. The country seems to want farage and I despair.

Sweeting is a Starmer protégé, so hopefully not him.

The geopolitics is unlikely to change any time soon with the orange marauder in the White House so in terms of the cost of living it won’t matter who’s in charge.
What I can’t forgive is the fact that they had the chance to be bold (albeit a small one) and they chose constant appeasement instead. Let’s not completely lose our memories though … the shithouses who ran this country into the iceberg are currently laughing at us all in their new Reform livery. A bigger bunch of racists, liars, misogynists and domestic abusers you couldn’t wish to find. I hope to god we never find out what depths they are capable of dragging us into.
This looks like the end of Starmer. I think Burnham offers the best chance for the country. Sweeting is a disaster waiting to happen.

He won't go tonight, but when your Home Secretary fucks you over publicly then it's a case of when and not if.

I despair of UK politics at the moment. I genuinely can't remember a worse time. At a time when we need stability and a strong relationship with Europe more than at any other, the UK gets busy rearranging the fucking deck chairs for the sake of a popularity contest and someone's vanity project.

The Labour Party is shooting itself in the foot repeatedly. Not for the first time, a political party shows that it will always be party (and egos) before country. And as a country we have got to stop swapping PMs in and out more times than a duck's arse. It is beyond ridiculous.

@greenapplez also, Starmer initially tried to pretend that he had no connection with Phil Shiner who was ultimately struck off for bringing false cases against UK veterans

If Starmer had actually stood up and publicly addressed this, if we had a chance to actually hear an explanation, then things might be different. But initially lying about it and then trying to brush it off - that doesn't sit well with me.

@greenapplez I will read that tomorrow

I am very aware that there's another side of this argument. It all adds up to a picture that Starmer just wants to undermine the country though. You do realise some of the soldiers were found to be innocent of all charges? So him volunteering to give his time for free, does that not raise any questions with you? Wouldn't he have been better off staying out of UK politics? He may be very suited to an international role.

Adding the destruction of court records, the desire to end jury trials - again I realise other countries don't have jury trials - to me it doesn't look good.

Not sure

if you ask AI, you might get a better scan and also it depends if you have any subscriptions (I don't but some of this was gifted to me. Sorry I can't find that link.) Downing Street have commented on all of it so you will find it online

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2026/04/24/hermer-hailed-starmers-groundbreaking-work-suing-soldiers/

The destruction of court records became an urgent question in parliament and luckily it was stopped

https://x.com/i/trending/2024072692241236042

Add this in to his general attitude towards the British public as a whole - I guess we're all far right now - and then I suppose it depends whether you consider him responsible for his ministers. The overall vibe is they have no concerns about antisemitism, no intention to treat women and girls fairly - still waiting for the Supreme Court judgement to be honoured - they were very reluctant to sort out the grooming gang inquiry and that remains unsorted, haven't done anything about Thames water which a lot of people thought would be their first task when getting into power, Starmer was so excited about the release of Abdul El Fatth (sp) that he posted on X about it on Boxing Day... I mean what is there to like about the man?

Who does he actually care about?

And that thing with lifting children out of poverty, was it absolute poverty or relative poverty? Because if it's relative poverty, by default, those falling into the percentage poverty as defined by that term, are still there.

oh, and his face during the inquiry about the farmers inheritance tax with the suicide - he doesn't give a shit. I realised to some extent your prime minister has to be someone who can put their humanity aside to make decisions - but it seems like he's got a whole group of people that he would like to target?

I don't get anything positive out of this government.

I'm absolutely not someone who will come along and say everything is terrible, because that's too depressing - and I thought he was a calm and sensible person when he came to power

How wrong I was. I think that's partly why there is an undercurrent of anger. People who voted for him and for Labour must be feeling incredibly disappointed. Obviously not people on this thread.

But I'm a little bit unsure about how much attention people have been paying to his actions - especially with the joke media we have now.

Is this what you're talking about? From the International Criminal Court:

"the UK has, to date, entirely failed to address the extent to which its forces’ abuse of detainees in Iraq was systemic and that the state failed to investigate or prosecute those most responsible for these crimes. In closing its preliminary examination, the ICC refuses to close the impunity gap, despite finding that war crimes were committed by British soldiers."

https://www.ecchr.eu/en/case/war-crimes-by-uk-forces-in-iraq/

Why would he 'hate his country' if he investigates the crimes of his own country, as a lawyer trained to do so. With the aim that this kind of stuff doesn't happen in the name of the UK and its people. I'd assume you'd be impressed by this?

Also Ben Roberts-Smith in Australia, do you think he shouldn't have been investigated in the first place?

I agree. Shameless.

And for all of his faults, he is doing a good job on international politics right now. I’d like him to stay and be the sensible, grown up, we need. God, imagine Wes Streeting or Andy Burnham dealing with Trump. Horrifying.

do you have a source I can read about this?

Totally agree. While he's been shit when it comes to women's rights (and I suspect he's a misogynist), his caution about saying the wrong thing, and fence-sitting, do protect against more egregious harms. The next person could be far worse - Lammy, Rayner and Burnham have all drunk the Kool Aid.

if he doesn't go now, labour are out at the next election and possibly beyond.

I really hoped labour would stick together as more instability would be a disaster.

Do any of the people who like him want to address the points about the court records and the cases brought against army personnel?

I really hope he hangs on in there. I don't love him but he's doing an ok job. I cannot understand the hate for him. Regardless, it would be very dangerous for him to go now. We need stability, not a return to a revolving door at number 10.

I agree. But on that second point, we have to be realistic here. Things will be a lot worse for women if we end up with Lammy as PM, and several other frontrunners. It doesn't bear thinking about if we end up with a reform government. Yes they know what a woman is, but they just use that knowledge to subjugate us further. So right now, I'd prefer to stick with Starmer.

Last paragraph here is laughable for any of us who remember the pandemic, but this gives the game away

Because this has to happen to get rid of Labour earlier than 2029. Once he goes, the next one comes and goes fast too

This is all being pushed to start the churn of replacing the PM. Once you've started it's a slippery slope. Labour are being fools. Let Starmer actually get on with the job, don't get sucked into the drama as orchestrated by the BBC-Express-GBNews network.

I really bloody hope not. Why the fuck are they playing into reform’s hands?!

@Babyboomtastic I agree that he is calm and he is certainly intelligent

However, the fact that he hates this country so much is hugely problematic to me

There have been other threads where people explained rationally what he's done that's pissed them off so much, myself included, but I've noticed no one ever wants to engage with the rational comments

Also, there was never really an explanation for why he wanted to go after British soldiers in court, never an explanation for the suggested destroying court records - that started with records relating to the grooming gangs but it did expand further than that (I think finally he's not getting away with that) and just generally nobody on here ever addresses the actual problems we have with him

I didn't vote for him, but I wasn't horrified that that they got in. I am horrified by what happened since he got in. But like I said, no one ever wants to address it....

it's possible that the next leader will be exactly the same I guess. But the reason I mentioned those two things is because I suspect they are very specific to Starmer. Certainly the stuff about the army is.

KS goes and Yvette calmly takes charge temporarily whilst the rest of them have some kind of last man standing match.

You also said centre, which traditionally meant right of Lab, left of Con. Who knows these days-everyone tends to see themselves as centrist.
And no, to answer your question.

I'd totally forgive him being boring - would welcome it in fact - if he would only a) start making some policies that actually improved the economy (instead of exacerbating its problems); and b) give Phillipson the kick up the arse she so richly deserves to finally get on and make sure the Supreme Court decision is acted upon.