Former minister threatens threatens to spark leadership contest by Monday

Former minister Catherine West has said she will challenge the Prime Minister if a Cabinet minister does not put themselves forward to do so by Monday.

In an exclusive interview with the BBC, the MP for Hornsey and Friern Barnet said that while her preferred option would be for the Cabinet’s “best communicator” to replace the PM without a leadership contest, if she did not hear from a leadership hopeful by Monday, she would trigger a leadership contest.

West claims to have the backing of ten fellow Labour MPs for a potential leadership bid, far short of the 81 needed to set a leadership contest in motion. However, her candidacy is likely to act as a stalking horse for other potential candidates to challenge the Prime Minister.

While she said Starmer had done “excellent” work on foreign policy and rebuilding the Labour Party, she warned that Labour was struggling to take the fight to Reform on the domestic agenda.

She said: “I would like the Cabinet to come around the table and elect a leader amongst themselves. If that cannot happen, and there are no leadership hopefuls who come forward tomorrow, then Monday morning I will put my name forward to stand for the Leader of the Labour Party. I will be seeking the 81 names that are needed to take to the Party Chair and I will begin a leadership election.

“I don’t have a candidate, and that’s part of the problem. But I think there are several people who would like to do it who have been planning for months. But I’m very surprised that none of them has popped up today to say: ‘I will do it.’

“I’m putting people on notice: if I don’t hear by Monday morning of some leadership hopefuls, I will be asking everybody in the Parliamentary Labour Party to put a name against my name.”

So far, almost 40 Labour MPs have called on the Prime Minister to resign or to set out a timetable for his departure following a set of dire election results across the country.

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