Labour’s bitter divisions erupt in Downing Street attack

Good morning. The unease and unhappiness within the Parliamentary Labour party has broken out into the open after what must be some of the most ill-advised briefings I have ever witnessed from any Downing Street operation. Some more thoughts on that in today’s note.

It’s been a long road, getting to Wes from Keir

Downing Street launched a remarkable attack on one of the government’s own cabinet ministers across multiple publications last night. What one minister told George Parker was “one of the weirdest briefing decisions I have ever seen” has caused fresh waves of confusion and anger within the parliamentary party.

Over at Bloomberg: “supporters” (Bloomberg’s words, not mine) of Keir Starmer accused Wes Streeting of plotting to replace the prime minister. In the Times, “allies” of the prime minister (again, their words, not mine) said Starmer had vowed to fight any challenge to his leadership, whether it came after this month’s Budget or after Labour’s expected battering in the local and devolved elections next year.

Meanwhile, in the Guardian, Starmer’s “most senior political aides” said it would be a “reckless” and “dangerous” move to remove the prime minister and that it would spook markets, shake up our international relationships and cause hell itself to breathe out contagion to this world. (I paraphrase.) One government figure told the FT: “A circular firing squad won’t help the government out of the hole we’re in.”

It’s true to say that the mood in the PLP is increasingly despairing, and as a result, preparations are under way by various cabinet ministers for a post-Starmer future. (Excellent piece by Jess Elgot on how and why Labour MPs are so frustrated here.)

That said, after the welfare debacle in which the government U-turned on planned cuts to benefits, cabinet ministers are all under greater pressure to meet backbench MPs and to better engage with them. This is becoming a source of frustration. Some feel they are damned if they do and damned if they don’t: arrange meetings with MPs and you are seen as plotting by a paranoid Downing Street, don’t meet them and you are blamed for their failures. (In an added source of irritation, it’s not as if Liz Kendall, the then work and pensions secretary, was failing to talk to MPs: the problem was that MPs did not buy the welfare policy she was selling.)

And it is true to say that one of the politicians who is profiling for a future contest is Wes Streeting. But equally, Streeting is not mad, and he understands that the Labour membership is not going to reward someone who pulls the house down — despite the fact many Labour members are unhappy with the government’s direction.

What is catching the eyes of MPs is that there is another candidate, widely believed by the party’s power brokers to be the preferred choice of Morgan McSweeney, Starmer’s chief of staff (or, you might say, his “most senior political aide”): Shabana Mahmood, home secretary.

Some see these stories as a two-for-one on McSweeney’s part: an attack on Streeting, who he is not politically close to, and something that undermines his new boss to the benefit of his next boss.

Others see it as cock-up rather than conspiracy. (One Labourite texted me last night, quoting from All The President’s Men: “The truth is, these are not very bright guys, and things got out of hand.”) Downing Street’s preferred tactic for some time, when things look bad, is to point out to Labour MPs that they have doubts about the alternatives to Starmer. Before Angela Rayner’s resignation, the two candidates used to be Streeting (for MPs on the right of the party) and Rayner (on the left). The general consensus among MPs is that if the Starmer project collapses in the next year or so, as it may well do, it is too soon for Rayner but not for Streeting, so the same old tactic is being aired, but this time with only one name.

A third group sees another motive: that what Downing Street is clumsily trying to do is to remind Labour MPs (now largely drawn from the right and middle of the party) that it is far from clear which of the alternatives to Starmer could possibly win a leadership election. Both Mahmood and Streeting are seen as being on the outermost reaches of the party’s right — usually the death zone for would-be leadership hopefuls. One MP suggested to me that talking about a leadership election is a useful way to “concentrate minds” on the fact that while there are many possible leaders who would be an upgrade on Starmer, it is far from clear that they could win a leadership election, and the result of getting rid of the prime minister might be something worse.

(For what it is worth, the Labour party rule book on a leadership challenge means that a Liz Truss style shift of position is not, I think, on the cards. Rebels would need 80 signatures — a fifth of PLP members — in support of a named challenger. That requirement shuts out the party’s left. What is much more likely is that the next leader will be someone not as far to the right as Streeting or Mahmood but someone able to position themselves as being from the middle of the party: Bridget Phillipson, Yvette Cooper, at a stretch Ed Miliband.)

Regardless, it is a story with the same effect: to draw Labour’s bitter divides and Starmer’s vulnerability out into the open just weeks before the Budget. And it has left Labour MPs wondering: is the issue that Downing Street’s most senior aides are paranoid incompetents, or that they are hatching plots of their own? Neither are questions that any half-competent Downing Street should be inviting upon itself.

Now try this

I had a lovely dinner talking about, among other things, financial literacy thanks to FLIC, the FT’s financial literacy charity. There are still some auctions for lunches with FT journalists going (alas, lunch with Simon Kuper at the delightful Quo Vadis is now outside my budget, though it is still a great combination of writer and eatery).

Top stories today

• The gilt-y verdict . . . | Gilts opened slightly weaker in response to the leadership speculation. The 10-year gilt yield rose 0.03 percentage points to 4.42 per cent in early trading, slightly underperforming French and German bonds. The pound continued to shrug off the plotting talk, trading flat against the dollar at $1.315. Kitty Ussher, a former Labour Treasury minister now at Barclays, briefed Starmer’s officials this week on how markets are seeking political stability.

• Research paper walls | The UK has scaled back areas of scientific and technological collaboration with China over heightened security risks, even as a senior minister heaped praise on the “strong scientific nation”.

• Waspi review | The UK government is revisiting its decision to deny compensation of up to as much as £10.5bn for 3.8mn women born in the 1950s, who claim they lost thousands of pounds after not being properly informed of the changes to the state pension age. 

• Pushing for a payout | Donald Trump said he has “an obligation” to sue the BBC over edited speech. Talking about the lawsuit for the first time on US TV, Trump said he had “an obligation to do it, because . . . you can’t allow people to do that”.

• Wrong turn | Rachel Reeves has sought to blame the Tories for the UK’s weak public finances, saying downgraded official growth forecasts are being driven by policies including Brexit and austerity. Our team points out Labour’s own choices have also contributed to the fiscal black hole.