In the meantime, Labour MPs — already disenchanted with Starmer’s leadership as he struggles in the polls — are publicly demanding an overhaul of the prime minister’s team.
“Something needs to give,” Labour MP for Southport Patrick Hurley told Times Radio Friday morning. “Something needs to change.”
Hurley decried the saga as a “distraction on steroids” from the government’s mission and said his own anger was “off the scale.”
Though Hurley backed the prime minister remaining in post, he suggested “some of the changes to the backroom staff might be a way” for the government to shift focus.
Stroud MP Simon Opher, who has previously criticized the government on welfare reform, told the BBC Starmer “needs to change his advisers in No. 10” and said the prime minister is being “really let down.”
“I know in politics we really rely on people to cover our backs, our advisers, and I think they patently haven’t done this with Peter Mandelson. So we need a bit of a clear out at No. 10,” he said.