As the Westminster psychodrama continues, Keir Starmer’s future as prime minister remains in the balance.
Although the number of MPs calling for his departure continues to creep up, Starmer has said he has no plans to step down and cabinet minister are starting to rally around the PM.
Perhaps the only thing the last 24 hours have shown is just how tricky it is to replace a Labour Party leader.
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Whilst the Conservatives were able to rattle through party leaders like it was going out of fashion during their 14 years in power, Labour Party processes make it much more difficult for them.
Allow us to explain…
The magic 20%
The Labour party rulebook states that a would-be challenger to the sitting leader needs to get the written support of 20% of the party’s MPs.
For this Labour government, that’s 81 MPs. Once someone hits the required number of nominations they can be put forward for a leadership contest, with the leader stating if they want to remain in post and fight the challenge.
On Tuesday morning, the magic 81 figure was reached and Starmer has already made clear he will fight a leadership challenge.
But, as Starmer told his Cabinet on Tuesday, the formal process for challenging a leader hasn’t actually been triggered because…
The lack of a clear contender
Although dozens of MPs are calling on Starmer to step down, that is all they’re doing. None of the calls are expressing support for a challenger, meaning a formal leadership contest can’t begin.
Whilst there are widely considered to be three main contenders for a leadership challenge – Wes Streeting, Andy Burnham and Angela Rayner – there’s yet to be a public coordinated campaign backing any of them.
Burnham needs a route back into parliament. Streeting and his backers will be weighing up the risks of going over the top and publicly challenging Starmer. The investigation into Rayner’s tax affairs still hasn’t been settled.
Until a single candidate is explicitly backed by 81 MPs, there is not requirement for a leadership contest and Starmer can stay put.
How this differs from the Conservative Party
This is the main reason replacing a Labour leader is much trickier than replacing a Tory one.
In the Conservative Party, MPs can simply express their lack of confidence in their leader anonymously, without any need to support a contender for the leadership.
The threshold required to start a potential leadership challenge is 15%. If this is reached, a no confidence vote will then take place. If the leader wins a simple majority in this vote, they stay on. If they don’t, they must resign and cannot stand in the subsequent leadership contest.
Then, contenders for the leadership can come forward and try to rally support.
Starmer shows Corbyn-esque defiance
Keir Starmer and Jeremy Corbyn don’t agree on much nowadays, but the current Labour leader may be replicating his predecessor in his refusal to bow down to pressure from the party.
When half of Corbyn’s shadow cabinet resigned in 2016, he simply replaced them and carried on. This sparked a parliamentary vote of no confidence amongst Labour MPs, which Corbyn lost by 172 votes to 40.
But this vote has no binding power, and Corbyn soldiered on. When a Labour leadership contest was formally triggered, Corbyn fought the contest and claimed a convincing victory over Owen Smith.
It was only after Labour’s defeat in the 2019 general election that Corbyn announced he would step down.
As pointed out by journalist Lewis Goodall, Starmer has an “iron clad self belief,” and may well be a tough leader to shift for his opponents within Labour.
Potentially historic leadership challenge
If you need any further evidence of how difficult it is to remove a Labour leader, just look through the history books.
Only three sitting party leaders have been challenged since the first Labour leadership elections in 1922. These were Hugh Gaitskell (1960 and 1961), Neil Kinnock (1988) and the aforementioned Corbyn (2016).
A Labour prime minister has also never faced a leadership election while in office.