Why Sir Keir Starmer remains on the brink

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. “The distraction has to end and the leadership in Downing Street has to change," said Anas Sarwar, the leader of Scottish Labour, on February 9th. He is the most senior figure in the party to call for Sir Keir Starmer to resign after a bruising few days during which Morgan McSweeney, the prime minister’s chief of staff, and Tim Allan, his director of communications, both quit.

Rather than follow Mr Sarwar, who faces tough elections in May, cabinet ministers issued statements of support for Sir Keir (with varying degrees of enthusiasm). Angela Rayner, his former deputy and a potential rival, tweeted her “full support". That evening at a packed meeting of Labour MPs the prime minister defended his record and said he was “not prepared to walk away…or to plunge us into chaos".

“It was all right, really. Strong," said one northern critic. For now, none of Sir Keir’s potential successors seems to have a plan to tackle Britain’s underlying problems.

The prime minister might remain in post for some time—propped up for long enough to do the bidding of his left-wing MPs—or he might be replaced by a more convincingly leftist leader. Either way, the Labour government will probably be less willing to reckon with reality. Sir Keir is the most unpopular British prime minister since records began (see chart): the sick man who cannot afford to catch a cold.

That is why the scandal around Peter Mandelson’s relationship with the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein has been so destabilising. Sir Keir’s decision to appoint Lord Mandelson as Britain’s ambassador to America left him perilously exposed once fresh revelations emerged. Though the prime minister sacked Lord Mandelson as Britain’s ambassador