Cabinet rallies around embattled Starmer as Sarwar calls for him to quit

Cabinet ministers publicly pledged support to Sir Keir Starmer as he battled to remain in No 10 after Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar called for him to quit.

Downing Street said Sir Keir had a “clear five-year mandate” from voters, while senior ministers backed him, with Labour’s chief whip calling for an end to the party’s “infighting”.

The Prime Minister’s position is in jeopardy over his decision to appoint Lord Peter Mandelson as ambassador to the US despite his friendship with paedophile financier Jeffrey Epstein.

Mr Sarwar hit out at “failures in the heart of Downing Street”, warning they were hurting Labour’s chances in Scotland.

He is the most senior Labour politician to call for Sir Keir to go, conscious of the task facing Scottish Labour in May’s Holyrood elections where opinion polls indicate his party faces coming third behind the SNP and Reform.

At a hastily convened press conference in Glasgow, Mr Sarwar said: “The distraction needs to end and the leadership in Downing Street has to change.”

But as he was speaking, a series of Cabinet ministers rushed out statements in support of Sir Keir.

Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander said Mr Sarwar was “wrong”, while chief whip Jonathan Reynolds said: “Resorting to infighting now does not serve the country.”

Deputy Prime Minister David Lammy was the first of the Cabinet to post his support on social media, saying: “We should let nothing distract us from our mission to change Britain and we support the Prime Minister in doing that.”

Chancellor Rachel Reeves said: “With Keir as our Prime Minister we are turning the country around.”

Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper said: “At this crucial time for the world, we need his leadership not just at home but on the global stage.”

Labour has 37 MPs in Scotland who will now face having to decide whether to back Mr Sarwar or stay loyal to Sir Keir.

Scottish Secretary Douglas Alexander gave his backing to Sir Keir.

Work and Pensions Secretary Pat McFadden said Sir Keir deserved support from backbenchers at the meeting.

He told the Press Association: “I think he will acknowledge what’s gone wrong.

“He’ll take responsibility for the decision, but he’ll say the Government still has a lot of important work to do, and he wants to lead that work, and I believe he deserves the support of the parliamentary party in doing that.”

Sir Keir told staff at Downing Street on Monday morning that they must “go forward from here” and prove that politics can be a “force for good”.

Speaking to his team about Lord Mandelson, Sir Keir said: “The thing that makes me most angry is the undermining of the belief that politics can be a force for good and can change lives.”

Downing Street communications chief Tim Allan said he was standing down to allow “a new No 10 team to be built”.

Mr Allan, who like Lord Mandelson is a “New Labour” veteran, only joined the media operation in September.

Before Mr Sarwar’s intervention, calls for Sir Keir to go had come from MPs on the left of the party.

The pressure on his premiership looks unlikely to ease as the Government prepares for the lengthy process of releasing tens of thousands of emails, messages and documents relating to Lord Mandelson’s appointment.

Sir Keir believes the files will prove the former Labour grandee lied about the extent of his ties to Epstein during his vetting.

He and his former chief of staff Morgan McSweeney, who quit on Sunday, have pinned blame on vetting by the security services for failing to disprove Lord Mandelson’s claims that he barely knew the late financier, which were dramatically undermined by disclosures in the so-called Epstein files.