Labour MPs quit in droves with more than 70 calling for Keir Starmer to stand down
Naushabah Khan, the MP for Gillingham and Rainham, said she was also resigning as parliamentary private secretary to the Cabinet Office.
‘Our country faces unprecedented challenges’, she wrote in a post on X. ‘I did not enter politics to stand by while we fail.’
‘We need a clear change of direction now and no game playing. A Labour Government can and will rise to meet the moment if we act now.
‘I am calling for new leadership, so that we can rebuild trust and deliver the better future that the British people voted for.’
Melanie Ward has resigned as parliamentary private secretary to David Lammy and called for Starmer to step down.
In his big ‘unifying’ speech on Monday, the Labour leader admitted he had doubters in his own party as he pledged to put closer ties with the EU at the heart of his leadership ‘reset’.
Labour lost more than 1,400 councillors and was ousted from power in Wales, triggering widespread anger within the Labour ranks.
The Prime Minister said: ‘The election results last week were tough. Very tough.
‘That hurts and it should hurt. I get it. I feel it. I take responsibility.’
Turning to his own future, he vowed: ‘And I take responsibility for not walking away, not plunging our country into chaos, as the Tories did time and again. Chaos that did lasting damage to this country.
‘A Labour government would never be forgiven for inflicting that on our country again.’
But he also warned party faithful: ‘For the British people, tired of a status quo that has failed them, change cannot come fast enough.
‘Truth be told, I am not sure they believe that we care. I am not sure they believe that we see their lives.’
He also accused Nigel Farage of being ‘not just a grifter but a chancer’ following Reform UK’s staggering gains in the local elections, with more than 1,400 new councillors voted in.
The do-or-die speech failed to turn the tide of backbench Labour MPs turning on their leader.
Moderate backbencher David Smith said immediately after the address that he wanted the Prime Minister to lay out a timetable for leaving office.
Others backed him. David Pinto-Duschinsky, Labour MP for Hendon, told Sky News that the Prime Minister was ‘rising to the occasion’.
