Starmer insists he won’t quit as PM, as former minister Catherine West seeks to trigger Labour leadership contest – UK politics live

MP says that unless a cabinet minister comes forward to challenge the PM by tomorrow that she will

Good morning.

There were many predictions for Labour’s future ahead of the English, Scottish and Welsh elections, which have been terrible for the party, but there is one outcome foreseen by no one: a leadership challenge by Catherine West.

West, MP for Hornsey and Friern Barnet and a junior Foreign Office minister until she was sacked in the reshuffle last year,https://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2026/may/09/may-elections-results-keir-starmer-labour-nigel-farage-reform-uk-politics-latest-news-updates?page=with%3Ablock-69ff5f818f08f695b7fc0b47#block-69ff5f818f08f695b7fc0b47"> announced yesterday afternoon that, unless a cabinet minister comes forward to challenge Starmer for the Labour leadership by tomorrow morning, she will do it herself.

She would need the support of 81 Labour MPs to trigger a contest; there is no evidence that she has those numbers and (for reasons that are probably a mystery to anyone under the age of 50 – more on that later) she is being described as a stalking horse.

I’m not going to walk away from the job I was elected to do in July 2024.

I’m not going to plunge the country into chaos.