Labour MPs Move Against Starmer
Newscast
BBC
4.3 • 6.6K Ratings
🗓️ 11 May 2026
⏱️ 27 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Today, more Labour MPs have called for Keir Starmer to step down, but is an actual leadership challenge imminent?
In a speech on Monday morning Keir Starmer vowed to prove his “doubters” wrong, but the number of Labour MPs calling him to go continues to rise. Dozens of MPs have urged Starmer either to step down immediately or set out a timetable for his departure.
Adam, Chris and Alex discuss.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, podcasts. |
| 0:05.6 | Hello, here is the very shortened version of what's been happening today on Monday as we record this episode of Newscast. |
| 0:13.4 | So, Kier Starrmer did his big fightback speech. |
| 0:18.5 | Reviews were fairly mixed, I think it's fair to say. Then Catherine West, |
| 0:23.5 | the Labour Backbencher and former minister, who's been kind of the star of the news of the weekend, |
| 0:28.0 | downgraded what she was trying to do from a leadership contest to more getting Kirstarmor to set out a |
| 0:34.2 | timetable for a leadership contest. Then we got a trickle that turned into a bit |
| 0:38.5 | more of a fuller flow of Labour MPs saying that maybe Keir Stammer's time was up. And then at tea time, |
| 0:44.3 | just as we were getting ready to record this episode, some PPSs. So the people who are like the |
| 0:49.3 | lowest rung of the ministerial ladder, often called ministerial bag carriers in a slightly derogatory way. |
| 0:55.3 | A few of them announced that they'd lost confidence in Kearst Armour too, and some of them |
| 0:59.9 | resigned from their posts. |
| 1:01.7 | And then people started working out, hang on, who were they bag carriers too? |
| 1:05.4 | And the name Wes Streeting came up, which leads some people to the conclusion that maybe Wes Streing is in the foothills of his own leadership challenge against Keir Starmer. |
| 1:15.9 | So we will unpack all of that, or at least try to get our heads around it, on this episode of Newscast. |
| 1:22.0 | Newscast from the BBC. |
| 1:24.4 | Humanity's next great voyage begins. |
| 1:26.7 | We are in the midst of a rupture. Nostalgia will not bring back the old order. Six-seven. Yeah. It's supposed to be me as a doctor. Daddy has also a special connotation. Ooh-la-la. Thinking about it like a panto helped. Do we play music now? What do we think? Hello, it's Adam in the newscast studio. And it's Alex in the newscast studio. And I should just say for full transparency, it is 6.34pm on Monday the 11th of May. And Chris Mason will whirl in like the Tasmanian devil with the latest because there's quite a lot happening. And we just thought, actually, why don't me and Alex? Well, we've got a kind of moment. |
| 2:02.6 | Just talk about what's been happening today. And then Chris can update us on the very latest, which will probably also change as he's updating us. Yeah, I reckon you're right. Just one of those kind of days. So Alex, let's wind the clock back to 10 a.m. on Monday morning. Kier Starrmer was at a venue in central London doing a, and I hate |
| 2:18.9 | this cliche, but it is true in this case, a kind of make or break speech. Yeah, it genuinely is true |
| 2:24.1 | in this case because the backdrop of that, of course, is those brutal local election results |
| 2:28.3 | and election results in Scotland and Wales where Labour just took a proper kicking. And then over |
... |
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