Who will be the UK’s next prime minister?
As Keir Starmer's premiership seems less and less stable with each passing hour, who could take his place?
Here it comes. The question of when Keir Starmer’s stint as Prime Minister would end was already pencilled in for ‘some point vaguely in the wake of the May 2026 local elections’, but now we get to see how it’s going to happen.
A bit of a recap of said local elections: Reform surged like a tidal wave, the Greens were more like a surprising splash, the Tories impressively (according to Kemi Badenoch) lost less than expected, and Labour lost more than even their most pessimistic members could have feared.
In one of his first interviews after this electoral slap, Keir Starmer insisted that he would not be going, that he intended to take the Labour Party through the next general election, and thus remain prime minister for the next ten years, displaying hitherto unseen level of tone deafness – and that’s saying something when it comes to this son of a b*tch toolmaker.
Keir Starmer is more deluded than a kid hoping Margaret Thatcher might spare him some milk, mustn’t they?
Compounding upon this tone deafness, in a speech on Monday 11 May, the prime minister set out his vision of how the Labour Party were to govern going forward, and how he would personally change in order to do so… Naturally, no change was on show beyond Starmer removing his jacket and tie. Oh, and he pulled up his sleeves. One pities the focus group who had to validate that choice.
The Labour Party now faces a particularly difficult set of circumstances. Their leader can only boast of a mere 19% popularity rating, and currently stands in 21st place in a ranking of the most popular UK prime ministers, lying just under serial wheat-field-botherer Theresa May in 20th place, and far outpaced by the posh-spoken ambulant mop in 7th place, Boris Johnson.
That must sting given Labour’s repeated reminders of the Tories’ many great failures, but it must sting all the more so now that they are faced with that same dilemma that beleaguered the Conservative Party so repetitively: what to do when your country and your party is fed up to the back teeth with your leader?
Every M.P. from the backbenches to the cabinet must surely realise that, when he declares he can carry the party to a second consecutive general election win, Keir Starmer is more deluded than a kid hoping Margaret Thatcher might spare him some milk, mustn’t they?
And yet, they cannot forfend the British public seeing them as a tribute act of the Tories’ revolving door of prime ministers shipped in from the local Westminster temping agency.
So, they need to find a leader who will last them the rest of their mandate, and hopefully the next. And they need to find that leader swiftly, because they’ve been put on notice by the First Horsewoman of the Labour-ocalypse, the woman with the biggest cajoles in Parliament, the star of the most bizarre potential Pet Shop Boys parody – ladies and gentlemen, I give you: CATHERINE WEST!!!
AND THE CROWD GOES… mild…
Then the members of the crowd furrow their brows, look around them, and mouth to each other one sole monosyllabic question: ‘Who?’
So let’s see: who are these hopeful potential leaders – horsemen and -women of the Labour-ocalypse – who are set to emerge from the parliamentary ether on the hunt for Sir Keir’s job?
Catherine West
Member of Parliament for Hornsey and Friern Barnet, member of the Treasury Select Committee, and trade envoy to Pakistan, Catherine West’s complete obscurity up to this point is almost impressive given her heavy portfolio. The fact she sports the same standard issue bob as most other female members of the party probably doesn’t help.
The most important thing to know about Catherine West is that - in spite of her clear lack of courage when it comes to her hair - she is most certainly the most courageous member of the PLP.
In the wake of the local election massacre, no one was willing to put their head above the parapet. Sure, ‘friends of’ various cabinet members were gleefully briefing their favourite journalists that it was time for Starmer to go, but no one but West was willing to actually go public and tell him that it was time.
Does this mean she would be a good prime minister? I’m not sure, but if she could loan her cajones to whoever does take up the mantle, the country will surely thank her.
Wes Streeting
There is little doubt that no one wants Wes Streeting to be prime minister more than Wes Streeting wants to be prime minister. Just to witness him in any given scenario is to be struck by his absolute and deep-held yearning for the position.
But one cannot help but be struck by the heavy baggage that might hold him back from No. 10, including but not limited to his position as a protégé of disgraced Labour grandee Peter Mandelson, his alignment with the gender critical movement on questions of single-sex spaces, and his current fraught relationship with the British doctors under his purview as Secretary of State for Health and Social Care.
Many tout that this week in the wake of the local elections is Wes Streeting’s sole chance to take down Starmer and replace him. So, if you’re questioning whether Wes Streeting can become the next prime minister, the answer is simple: if, and only if, he can borrow Catherine West’s balls within the next week.
Andy Burnham
Cometh the hour, cometh the man, but unfortunately this man cannot cometh to Parliament any time soon.
A favourite of many in the Parliamentary Labour Party when it comes to envisioning a potential Starmer replacement, Andy Burnham faces a significant hurdle in his path to becoming prime minister: he isn’t a member of the parliamentary party he would like to lead.
Forbidden by the NEC from running in the Gorton and Denton by-election, Andy Burnham has up ‘til now had to content himself with his position as Mayor of Greater Manchester. Of course, such is his support within the party that there have been whispers of an MP giving up his seat to trigger a by-election that Burnham might win.
But would that work?
This entire crisis revolves around the Labour Party’s dismal performance at the local elections: can they really risk losing another by-election just to get a new leader? The optics of the worst case scenario where Labour lose a seat to Reform or the Greens are simply unimaginable. The by-election would become a de facto popularity contest of not only Keir Starmer but the entire Labour Party, and you can bet that the other parties will be putting their all into ruining Burnham’s chances of winning.
Honestly, it’s just not worth it.
Angela Rayner
Let’s just put it simply: no chance until she sorts things out with HMRC. Even then, judging from her seemingly AI-generated statement on Sunday, she is positioning herself to the left of what many on the centre-left in the Labour Party could be comfortable with.
What do you think?
Feel free to comment below if you have any other candidates in mind.
Whomever the party chooses, it is my sincere hope that the next leader will manage to make a success of the modern Labour Party project. Anything less would guarantee us the unfortunate sight of either professional Homer Simpson impersonator and Trump suceur-en-chef, Nigel Farage, or the breast reduction surgeon’s worst nightmare, Zack Polanski, standing proudly outside No. 10 after the next election. One shudders to imagine it, and I know the Labour Party feels the same.
Oh, who am I kidding, imagining that they might actually turn things around? At this point, our only hope in the face of populism may lie in the hands of Kemi Badenoch and her slowly revitalising Conservative Party.
I cannot believe I just wrote those words, but unfortunately, I fear they might just be true.
