The British Prime Minister is still refusing to step down despite having no support left within the Labour Party because his wife won’t allow it. That’s not a loyal wife. That’s a handler:
Over the past 24 hours, the PM’s allies have fanned out to brief that she will be the decisive voice in determining whether he steps down, or opts to fight on. With the consensus conveniently being that she will urge him to dig in.
‘Vic is of the view, “You need to keep on going,”’ one pro-Starmer aide briefed. Another claimed she is ‘his rock’. ‘You hear second-hand she’s really pushing for him to stay.’OK. But with the greatest respect to Lady Starmer, that’s not her decision to make.
It’s obviously natural that any senior politician would discuss the issue of their impending resignation with their close family members. But that is not what Starmer’s inner circle are briefing. According to them, Lady Starmer effectively has a veto of whether her husband stays in office or steps down. And she shouldn’t have. She is not a member of the Cabinet. She is not a Member of Parliament. She has no formal advisory role.
Until this point Downing Street has strenuously insisted she is entirely divorced from the Government’s political affairs, and should be afforded due privacy as a result. Yet we’re suddenly being told she is second-guessing the elected Cabinet, elected MPs, the tens of thousands of people who voted in the Makerfield by-election and the millions who voted in the recent local elections, and is ordering Sir Keir to stick his head in the sand.
Starmer’s fate was sealed the moment Andy Burnham got back into Parliament by winning the by-election and becoming eligible for a Labour Party leadership challenge. And I think we’ll see Britain cease to be quite so bellicose in both the Middle East and Russia once Starmer is forced out of office, which is probably why he’s being made to fight, and inevitably lose, an ignominious battle he cannot win.