Keir Starmer's future. Can someone explain please?

[CompetitionMyArse]

So the leader of Scottish Labour has held a press conference calling for KS's resignation. No official word from Wes Streeting, Angela Rayner or Ed Milliband yet but the rest of the cabinet seem to be coming out of the woodwork one by one to rally round KS.

If KS did resign this week would there have to be a general election? I thought I heard a journalist say earlier that there would, but I'm not sure if I caught him correctly. And I'm not sure I understand why/how that would be the case, but I think it's something to do with the timing re: by-elections? Can someone enlighten me please?

Is this why the cabinet are largely coming out in support of Starmer? And why Starmer is hanging on for dear life? Because they know they'll be absolute toast if a GE is triggered?

If he resigned and it didn't need to trigger a general election, do you think we'd hearing different things from people like Lammy and Yvette Cooper?

There wouldn’t be a general election. Unless Starmer called it.

Why would there be a general election? We had something like 7 different PMs during the last Tory party term and not once did it trigger GE.

I wonder if he would, to stop AR getting the job.

There won't be a general election.

The last thing we need is the chaos of a leadership election. Changing a PM popular on the world stage at a time of global instability is especially foolish.

We had enough psychodrama with the last lot, hopefully this gets squashed and he can get on with doing his actual job. Heads have rolled and we will have forgotten by next week.

And let Reform in?

Hes just being crucified by the right wing press. Nothing else.

It was three wasn't it ? Johnson, Truss and then Sunak.

And each time the new one came in the Labour party was arguing they didn't have a mandate and there should be a GE.

It's the usual levels of hypocrisy.

He won’t call an election it would sink the entire ship! I think he’ll try and keep going while he has scraps of support. I’m trying to work out who can replace him. Not Rayner surely?

This!

It doesn't trigger a general election, they just change the leader.

I think he'll limp on until May when they'll get battered in the local elections. Streeting is keen to go for leader, but he's a bit too close to Mandelson so this isn't the right time for him, but in May it likely would be...

Yes

Perhaps the seven came from the number of Chancellors of the Exchequer the Tories had between 2010 and 2024. Five of them in the last four years in power.

Theresa May as well.

I’m not sure where you get the idea he’s popular on the world stage. On his recent visit to China he was openly mocked, and Xi snubbed him by subbing out his tour of the forbidden city to a tour guide. Macron was shown round by Xi himself. That will have been a deliberate choice…the Chinese, along with many other nations, are the masters of sending signals without saying anything. To ignore that is to misunderstand culture.

Having said that, for economic stability the last thing the UK needs is another change of leader! It is making for interesting conversations over dinner down here in Italy however; friends are amazed that the UK has degenerated into Italian style revolving door of leadership in such a short time, and that Labour are making such a hash articulating what they stand for.

Ah but by May we’ll have seen the docs..

And the Tories said the same when Brown replaced Blair.

Why are so many people so woefully uninformed about general elections? Starmer is simply the leader of the party and therefore the person called by the monarch to form a government and be prime minister.

If he resigned as party leader, there would be a leadership contest - just like when Theresa May resigned and Johnson was elected, when Johnson resigned and Truss was elected, when Truss resigned and Sunak was elected.

Ture, and that will probably do it...

Isn’t he the Trump Whisperer?

That's what I thought but I could have sworn I heard one of the journos parked outside 10 Downing Street saying there would have to be a GE, hence my question. Perhaps I misheard.

Yes, so true 😂

The Labour party haven’t actually changed leaders yet though. And probably won’t.

"Cameron calls for election when Blair quits"

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2006/dec/19/conservatives.uk

All the opposition do the same when the PM quits.

In reality the decision is made by the public.

I am pretty sure that if a new PM came in with a vastly different manifesto from the one that was in power when the election took place enough public pressure would build to force them to hold an election, especially if that new manifesto was unpopular.

If they carry on with pretty much the same manifesto as the old leader then they can get away with it.

He can call and demand all he likes. He didn't on all those occasions when Tory PMs resigned, did he?