Dozens of Labour Party lawmakers called on Prime Minister Keir Starmer to resign on Monday, effectively rejecting their leader’s efforts to quell a mutiny in the party ranks and raising the likelihood of a bruising leadership battle.
Mr. Starmer began the day with a speech he hoped would quiet the brewing rebellion, acknowledging the anger expressed by voters last week when they overwhelmingly rejected Labour Party candidates in elections across England, Scotland and Wales.
The results in England, Scotland and Wales have piled pressure on Sir Keir, with some Labour MPs calling for him to set a timetable for his departure, although his cabinet allies have backed him for now.
Labour has lost power in Wales, ending its 27 year-long rule, while the SNP appears likely to remain the largest party in Scotland.
Reform UK has been the big winner in England, picking up more than 1,400 seats and taking control of councils in areas where Labour and the Conservatives have been historically dominant.
He was later pushed on who had ordered him to look into getting Doyle a position, and who had ordered him not to tell the foreign secretary (which at the time was David Lammy).
Robbins said: “I don‘t know what the origin of the suggestion was, and I don‘t know who exactly was behind it or how serious it was.
“It was serious enough for the No 10 private office to ring up the head of the diplomatic service and ask for a forward look of available head of mission jobs, and that‘s the point at which I thought that I needed to lay down some markers.”
Testifying to MPs at parliament’s foreign affairs select committee on Tuesday, Olly Robbins said he had several conversations with No 10 about finding a role for Matthew Doyle, who was later suspended as a Labour peer after it emerged he had campaigned for a friend charged with possessing indecent images of children.
Robbins said he had been asked not to mention the idea to David Lammy, who was foreign secretary at the time.
Robbins described the conversations as part of more general pressure from people at the top of the government to place senior political figures in senior diplomatic posts.
Asked who in No 10 had applied pressure, he said it was mainly the prime minister’s private office, which is staffed by civil servants. But he added: “I think that the private office would only have been [putting on] this pressure themselves if they were under pressure.”
The former top civil servant in Britain’s foreign office, who was fired by Prime Minister Keir Starmer last week, said on Tuesday that Mr. Starmer’s office had a “dismissive attitude” about the security vetting of Peter Mandelson, an associate of Jeffrey Epstein who became ambassador to the United States despite concerns raised during the vetting process.
The former civil servant, Olly Robbins, testified in Parliament that he and other officials in charge of deciding whether to grant Mr. Mandelson a high-level security clearance were working in “an atmosphere of pressure” to ensure that nothing got in the way of Mr. Mandelson’s appointment.
During the opposition years, his defenders countered that a stolid technocrat was exactly what the country needed. They sold the former head of the Crown Prosecution Service as the polar opposite of Boris Johnson, who was driven from Downing Street in part by Starmer’s own forensic questioning. If only Starmer had lived up to the billing of his detractors, reluctantly conceded by his allies, he wouldn’t be in the hole he finds himself this weekend.
Instead, he now has to rely on a defence that is lawyerly in the worst sense of that word. To have knowingly misled parliament is, in political terms, a capital crime. So the PM has to proceed on two tracks, one for “knowingly” the other for “misled”.
The BBC understands Sir Keir Starmer and Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper lost confidence in Sir Olly Robbins and was effectively sacked after a Guardian investigation revealed Mandelson had not been security cleared.
The PM is facing calls to resign amid claims he misled MPs when he told them „full due process“ had been followed.
Senior minister Darren Jones said Sir Keir had not been told of the vetting recommendation until Tuesday this week, had not misled MPs and would not be resigning.
(April 16, 2026)
„Es ist unverzeihlich, dass kein Minister, nicht einmal Downing Street, informiert wurde“, kommentierte Premierminister Keir Starmer. Doch Starmer selbst geriet ins Visier der Opposition, die seinen Rücktritt fordert. Der Chef von Downing Street scheint jedoch nicht zurücktreten zu wollen. „Er wird nicht zurücktreten“, versicherte Starmers engster Vertrauter, Darren Jones.
(Thu 16 Apr 2026 19.16 CEST)
In September, in a letter co-signed with foreign secretary Yvette Cooper, Robbins told MPs that “conducted to the usual standard set for developed vetting.
The Guardian understands that Robbins was told he had to resign after Starmer and Cooper lost confidence in the civil servant.
Mandelson’s failure to secure vetting approval has not previously been publicly revealed, despite intense scrutiny over his appointment and the release by the government of 147 pages of documents supposed to shed light on the case.
It reads: “Bill to require parliamentary approval for the deployment of UK armed forces and military equipment for armed conflict; to require parliamentary approval for the granting of permission by ministers for use of UK military bases and equipment by other nations for armed conflict; to require the withdrawal of that permission in circumstances where parliamentary approval is not granted; to provide for certain exemptions from these requirements; to make provision for retrospective parliamentary approval in certain circumstances; and for connected purposes.”
(today)
The alliance is between the resurgent Green Party, the new left-wing Your Party, the parliamentary Independent Alliance of independent MPs and Labour backbenchers.
Jeremy Corbyn, former Labour leader and parliamentary leader of the new Your Party, on Thursday tabled a parliamentary bill with cross-party backing that would require parliament‘s approval for the foreign use of British military bases.
It comes in response to Prime Minister Keir Starmer‘s decision on Sunday night to allow the US to use UK military bases for the purpose of targeting Iranian missile sites.
(February 26, 2026)
A Jeremy Corbyn-led Your Party will work with the Green party and others to push for a “coordinated left-flank offensive” against Reform and Labour, the Guardian understands.
After winning a comprehensive victory to become the de facto leader of the leftwing startup party on Thursday, Corbyn will seek to rebuild bridges with pro-Gaza communities “alienated” by his rival Zarah Sultana, sources close to Corbyn said.
New Green MP Hannah Spencer, a 34-year-old plumber, says „we can win anywhere“ – read her profile here
Labour hasn‘t lost in this area since 1931, and the Greens significantly outperformed expectations – read polling expert John Curtice‘s analysis on how this leaves British politics more uncertain than ever
Tory and Labour governments in Britain have provided every conceivable form of support for Israel’s genocidal project in Gaza. Peter Oborne, an independent-minded conservative journalist, has now provided us with a definitive record of their complicity.
Fearless and forensic, this incendiary indictment from one of Britain’s most celebrated political journalists lays bare the full extent of British complicity in the destruction of Gaza.
In a gripping narrative informed by original reporting, Peter Oborne tells how Britain’s Conservative and Labour parties converged to back Israel’s criminal assault—in the process occupying disturbing common ground with the far right.
Rather than challenge this political cartel, British media colluded in its misrepresentations. The shocking result was that, as British authorities helped Israel set Gaza as well as international law aflame, almost everything the public was told about this momentous conflagration was untrue.
When citizens still turned out in their hundreds of thousands to demand a ceasefire, roiling the nation’s politics as they stayed faithful to the ancient British tradition of popular protest in defence of liberty, the political-media machine bared its fangs. The investigative reporting in this book exposes the methods by which peaceful demonstrations were smeared as “hate marches”.
Formerly chief political commentator at the Daily Telegraph and Spectator, Oborne knows the British establishment from within. In this book he names names and provides receipts. His demand is accountability—for atrocities, and their accomplices.
(November 15, 2025)
British MP Jeremy Corbyn (left) meets Hadash MK Ofer Cassif, Nov. 12, 2025 (Photo: Al Ittihad)
His premiership hung by a thread Thursday after a revolt by MPs in his Labour Party further damaged a 10 Downing Street operation staggering from crisis to crisis.
Starmer tried to clarify his earlier statement in parliament on Wednesday that he knew about the friendship between former Cabinet minister Peter Mandelson and Epstein — but still made him ambassador to Washington.
The move came after the opposition Conservative Party said it would force a vote in Parliament on Wednesday calling for the release of emails and other messages related to Mandelson’s appointment in 2024. Critics say he should never have been given the job because his relationship with Epstein – though not its extent – was known at the time.
The government has agreed to release the requested information unless it is ”prejudicial to U.K. national security or international relations.” It’s unclear how much material will be released, or when.
JEREMY CORBYN will be elected parliamentary leader for Your Party if his slate wins the central executive committee election next month, his allies say.
If the list of candidates headed by the former Labour Party leader, called The Many, clinch the nomination on February 26, Zarah Sultana’s “parliamentary convener” model would not see the light of day.
(January 13, 2026)
Greenland’s energy minister asked British lawmakers for help in the face of “bewildering” U.S. aggression.
LONDON — The U.K. government must “dare to have principles” and help Greenland repel threats from Donald Trump, a senior minister in Greenland’s government told lawmakers in London.
(December 16, 2025)
In 1994, the world failed to stop genocide in Rwanda. In 1995, we failed in Sbrebrenica. Today, in Gaza, we are again being tested. We must act now!
Five British MPs have written to Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper urging the government to „urgently pursue UN-led military intervention“ to stop Israel‘s genocide in Gaza.
The letter by independent MP Adnan Hussain has been signed by three of his fellow members of the parliamentary Independent Alliance – Ayoub Khan, Iqbal Mohamed and Shockat Adam – as well as Liberal Democrat MP Andrew George.
More than 60 parliamentarians have written to the prime minister expressing their grave concern at reports that the Labour Party government is to welcome Israeli President Isaac Herzog on a visit to London from Tuesday 9 September.
In the letter, they stated that the UK, as a state party to the 1948 Genocide Convention, has a binding responsibility not only to refrain from committing genocide itself, but:
also to take active steps to prevent and punish genocide and incitement to it wherever it occurs. This obligation includes ensuring that individuals credibly implicated in the commission or incitement of such crimes are not afforded political legitimacy or hospitality by our government.
Albanese‘s involvement was confirmed by Corbyn during an appearance by the veteran politician at a fringe event at the Edinburgh festival on Saturday.
The UN special rapporteur will be asked for comment on the use of RAF bases in Cyprus to help Israel‘s military.
Set to take place in September, the tribunal follows Corbyn‘s unsuccessful attempts to pass legislation in parliament for an independent public tribunal.
Those attempts were blocked by the ruling Labour party.