The Latest: Starmer fights for political survival as calls for his resignation grow in UK

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U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer is fighting for his political survival after a disastrous set of results in local elections for his Labour Party last week.

Dozens of Labour lawmakers are calling on Starmer to resign, though several ministers publicly spoke of their support for Starmer as they left a Cabinet meeting on Tuesday.

The prime minister has insisted he has no intention of resigning. Starmer could be forced out if one-fifth of sitting Labour lawmakers, or at least 80 or them, agree to back a lawmaker to challenge him. So far, no formal leadership challenge has been triggered.

In a blow to Starmer, a junior minister became the first member of his government to quit on Tuesday.

Here's the latest:

Amid a flurry of calls within Starmer’s Labour Party for him to step down, British media report that some 100 lawmakers signed a statement supporting the prime minister.

The BBC, Press Association and others reported that lawmakers urged party members to “work together to deliver the change the country needs” after Labour suffered heavy losses at local elections across the U.K. last week.

“We must focus on that. This is no time for a leadership contest,” the statement reportedly said.

In a statement about the Cabinet meeting earlier Tuesday, Starmer’s office said senior ministers are focused on the conflict in the Middle East and getting the Strait of Hormuz reopened.

It made no mention of the growing calls from Labour lawmakers for Starmer to resign, or his pledge to “get on with governing.”

Starmer appeared to be carrying on with the business of government, chairing a committee on responding to the Middle East conflict around noon.

Alex Davies-Jones, the minister for tackling violence against women and girls, wrote in a letter to Starmer to “act in the country’s interest and set out a timetable for your departure.”

She called Starmer a “good and honest man,” but described the scale of Labour’s defeat at last week’s local elections as “catastrophic.”

“The country has spoken and we must listen,” she wrote. “We waited fourteen years to get into power and change the lives of those we represent. The time now is for bold, radical action.”

“We have needed to do more and therefore it is with a very heavy heart that I feel I have no choice but to resign,” she said.

Prime Minister Keir Starmer has lost a second member of his government amid a growing chorus of Labour Party members to resign.

Jess Phillips, the safeguarding minister, announced her resignation in a letter Tuesday.

“I think you are a good man fundamentally, who cares about the right things,” she wrote. “However I have seen first-hand how that is not enough.”

“I know you care deeply, but deeds, not words are what matter,” she added. “I want a Labour government to work and I will strive as I always have for its success and popularity, but I’m not seeing the change I think I, and the country expect, and so cannot continue to serve as a minister under the current leadership.”

The political crisis engulfing Starmer’s government comes just hours ahead of the State Opening of Parliament on Wednesday.

King Charles III will deliver the King’s Speech to mark the beginning of a new parliamentary year. The speech, which is written by officials but read out by the monarch, will set out the government’s legislative agenda for the coming months.

“As far as I’m aware, the King’s Speech is going ahead tomorrow,” Starmer’s chief secretary, Darren Jones, said.

At least 80 out of Labour’s 403 lawmakers have now demanded the prime minister stand down, or at least set out a timetable for his departure, after Labour suffered heavy losses in local elections last week.

However, so far no Labour lawmaker has announced they will challenge Starmer for the leadership.

While there is no clear frontrunner to replace Starmer, here are some of the leading contenders for the top job:

1. Wes Streeting - The health secretary is widely regarded as one of the government’s best communicators and has led on one of its key pledges, improving the creaky National Health Service.

2. Angela Rayner - the formerdeputy prime minister has long set herself apart as a different kind of politician with a compelling personal story. She was brought up in social housing and left school at 16 as a teen mother.

3. Andy Burnham - The former cabinet minister has long been seen as a potential rival for Starmer. But his leadership prospects were dented after Labour blocked him from standing as the party’s candidate for Parliament.

4. Ed Miliband - The energy secretaryis a former Labour leader, but his five years at the top of the party ended in the party’s 2015 election defeat.

5. Shabana Mahmood - The home secretary has become a favorite of many on the right of the Labour Party with her moves to tighten border controls and crack down on immigration.

A cabinet member in Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s government said there was no direct challenge to his leadership at Tuesday’s meeting.

Jenny Chapman, minister of international development, said she did not think Starmer’s authority had been destroyed by dozens of Labour Party members calling for him to step down.

“That’s not what I have just seen around the Cabinet table,” she told reporters outside 10 Downing St. “I saw a Cabinet united and focused on dealing with the issues that are confronting the British people.”

U.K. Health Secretary Wes Streeting, long believed to be preparing for a leadership challenge against U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer, didn’t comment as he left the Cabinet meeting at Downing Street.

“Wes Streeting, do you want the job, or not?” one person yelled from across the street. “Are you measuring the curtains?”

He was among senior ministers who dodged a barrage of shouted questions from a scrum of reporters gathered outside.

U.K. Business Secretary Peter Kyle has voiced support for embattled Prime Minister Keir Starmer.

Starmer is showing “really steadfast leadership,” Kyle told reporters as he left the Cabinet meeting.

Kyle says the meeting discussed the economy and issues facing society. He said that he was on his way to Brussels to deepen the U.K. relationship with the European Union — one of the goals Starmer announced Monday as he delivered a speech aimed at winning back support.

A U.K. official says that nobody had yet made a challenge to the leadership of U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer.

“The prime minister talked about the challenges we faced as a country, the crisis in the Middle East and the impact on the cost of living here,” Liz Kendall, the secretary of science, innovation and technology, told reporters as she left a Cabinet meeting.

“This government will do what we were elected to do, which is serve the British people. The prime minister has my full support in this,” Kendall said.

“There is a process to challenge the leader. Nobody has made that challenge,” she said.

U.K. Treasury chief Rachel Reeves won’t be taking part in a London risk summit that she was due to appear at after attending a Cabinet meeting.

Her place will be taken by Treasury minister Lucy Rigby.

U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s government is in turmoil as dozens of Labour Party lawmakers joined calls for him to quit, after poor local election results for the party last week.

Housing Secretary Steve Reed has urged Labour Party colleagues to support Prime Minister Keir Starmer as he faces calls to step down.

Reed posted a message on social media during a meeting of Starmer’s Cabinet.

“This is not a game,” Reed said on X. “This instability has consequences for people’s lives. The people who will be hurt most will be those that elected us less than two years ago. We must unite behind the Prime Minister.”

The Treasury confirmed that Rachel Reeves has pulled out of a London risk summit she was expected to take part in after attending a Cabinet meeting on Tuesday.

Her place will be taken by Treasury minister Lucy Rigby.

U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s government is in turmoil as dozens of his Labour Party lawmakers joined calls for him to quit Tuesday.

U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer doubled down Tuesday on his resolve to stay in office, despite calls to step down.

Starmer told Cabinet ministers that he took responsibility for devastating losses that his center-left Labour Party suffered in last week’s local elections across the U.K., but he would fight on.

Starmer said there’s a process to oust a leader and that hadn’t been triggered.

“The country expects us to get on with governing,” he said. ”That is what I am doing and what we must do.”

U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer lost the first member of his government Tuesday as he faced pressure to step down following losses in local elections.

Housing, communities and local government minister Miatta Fahnbulleh stepped down and urged Starmer “to do the right thing for the country” and set a timetable to step aside.

Fahnbulleh, a junior minister who is considered to be on the left of the party, said that she was proud of her service, but that the government hadn't acted with the vision, pace and mandate for change it had been given by voters.

The next U.K. national election doesn’t have to be held until 2029, but British politics allows parties to change leader midterm without the need for a general election.

If it comes to it, the simplest option would be for U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer to announce his intention to resign, triggering an election for the Labour leadership. A resignation announcement could possibly come if members of his Cabinet tell Starmer in their regular meeting on Tuesday that he has lost too much support within the party.

If Starmer doesn’t resign, he could face a challenge from one or more Labour lawmakers.