Ex-minister seeks to unseat PM Starmer amid polls drubbing

Labour lawmaker Catherine West will put her name up if no one else steps forward

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British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, reeling from a crushing local election defeat, faced a new setback to his leadership on May 9 when a former minister said she would challenge him for the top job if no one else stepped forward.

Mr Starmer’s Labour Party recorded the worst losses of a governing party in municipal polls since 1995, prompting a growing number of his own lawmakers to call on him to quit.

To try to shore up his position in the party earlier on May 9, he named two influential Labour grandees as advisers, former prime minister Gordon Brown and former deputy Labour leader Harriet Harman.

But just hours later, Labour lawmaker Catherine West, a former minister, told BBC Radio that she wanted the Cabinet to work out a plan to replace Mr Starmer by May 11, or she would challenge him for the position herself.