United Kingdom Prime Minister Keir Starmer is fighting for his political survival amid calls from parliamentarians for him to step down following the Labour Party’s stunning loss in local elections.

In a make-or-break speech on Monday, Starmer took responsibility for the “very tough” results, promising to “face up to the big challenges” and “make the Labour case” for a “stronger, fairer Britain”.

Admitting that Labour had made mistakes, he argued that its big political choices had been correct, including not being dragged into the US-Israel war on Iran. He pointed to reductions in National Health Service (NHS) waiting lists, child poverty and immigration, saying “the fundamentals are sound”.

“We’re not just facing dangerous times, but dangerous opponents,” Starmer said, adding, “We’re battling Reform and the Greens, but at a deeper level, we’re battling the despair on which they prey. Despair that they exploit and amplify.”

He said neither Reform UK’s Nigel Farage nor the Green Party’s Zack Polanski “offer the serious, progressive leadership that these times demand”.

Starmer described Labour as “a mainstream party of power, not protest” and said the government would introduce legislation to take ownership of British Steel and be defined by rebuilding the UK’s relationship with Europe. He also promised a “guaranteed offer of a job, training or work placement for every young person looking for a job”.

He added that “standing shoulder to shoulder with the countries that most share our interests” was “the right choice for Britain”.

Challenger urges Starmer to set exit timetable

In the wake of last week’s election defeat, which saw Labour lose more than 1,400 councillors in England, largely to Reform UK and the Greens, backbencher Labour MP Catherine West urged cabinet ministers to “move quickly” to replace Starmer. She said she would email her colleagues for the necessary support on Monday if no one else put themselves forward.

Following Starmer’s speech, the former junior minister said the address was “too little, too late”.

“What is best for the party and country now is for an orderly transition,” she said. “I am hereby giving notice to No 10 that I am collecting names of Labour MPs to call on the prime minister to set a timetable for the election of a new leader in September.”

More than 30 Labour MPs have said Starmer should resign or set out a timetable for his departure, including his former ally Josh Simons, who wrote in The Times that Starmer had “lost the country”.

Labour MP David Smith released a statement shortly after his speech, saying he believed it was “now the time” for Starmer to “set a clear timetable for his departure”. The North Northumberland MP called for a return to being a party of the working class and for Labour to “be more radical” in its solutions.

Liberal Democrat leader Ed Davey said voters had sent Starmer a clear message. “Britain needs a bold new direction, but he keeps delivering the same old speech,” he said.

He added that the government must end the cost-of-living crisis by “getting rid of Keir Starmer’s red lines on Europe and fixing the botched Brexit deal, including a customs union”.

Meanwhile, Labour MP Paulette Hamilton said the party “may as well hand in the keys to No 10 now if we don’t change our leader soon”.

The MP for Birmingham Erdington told Channel 5’s Jeremy Vine programme that she was “a loyalist” but called for an “orderly transition”. She said the local elections saw “people just put their votes anywhere except Labour”.

However, in his speech, Starmer noted the “chaos of constantly changing leaders” under previous Conservative governments, and said the Labour government “would never be forgiven for inflicting that on our country again”.

Former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn speared the prime minister’s speech in a post on X, pointing to the government’s decisions to cut welfare to “spend even more on weapons and war”, and its delay in scrapping the two-child benefit tax credit cap.

He also noted that the government had chosen “not to bring water into public ownership, not to tax wealth and not to implement rent controls”.

“The government chose to arm Israel and participate in genocide,” he said, and “chose to let the US use British air bases for its war crimes in Iran”.

Others remain supportive of the prime minister, however, including Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson, who told Sky News that she did not believe “a leadership contest and all of the problems that that would bring is the answer”.

Labour failed to sustain ‘public’s trust’

In an op-ed in The Guardian on Friday, Starmer noted that while it was important to respond to the message voters sent, “that doesn’t mean tacking right or left”.

Starmer appointed former Prime Minister Gordon Brown and former deputy Labour leader Baroness Harman to key government positions on Saturday in what is seen as a bid to shore up support.

A leadership contest requires the endorsement of 81 Labour MPs. Potential challengers to the leadership include Health Secretary Wes Streeting, former Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner and Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham.

Starmer’s government has been in power since 2024, when it ended 14 years of Conservative rule in a landslide victory. His popularity has since fallen, with the decision to cut the winter fuel allowance amid a cost-of-living crisis and the scandal over United States Ambassador Peter Mandelson’s links to sex offender Jeffrey Epstein contributing to the decline.

During this time, support has grown for right-wing Reform UK, and the Green Party under progressive Polanski, who has been vocal in his criticism of Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza.