‘A shift has taken place’: Starmer faces the music after weekend of reflection

The prime minister is believed to have had a change of heart over the weekend about the wisdom of contesting his leadership. Photograph: Jaimi Joy/EPAView image in fullscreenThe prime minister is believed to have had a change of heart over the weekend about the wisdom of contesting his leadership. Photograph: Jaimi Joy/EPA‘A shift has taken place’: Starmer faces the music after weekend of reflectionWhile PM’s desire to fight was strong, time with his inner circle at Chequers sharpened his sense of the inevitableOn Friday, as the dust settled on Andy Burnham’s thumping victory in the Makerfield byelection, Keir Starmer was in defiant mood.

“I have said repeatedly, I am not going to walk away,” the prime minister said, adding: “Let’s pull together as a party and a movement.”Just 48 hours later, one of his most loyal ministers was on the BBC sending a very different message. “I don’t want to come on here and be delusional that there is no process, there are no forces at work which are challenging the prime minister as leader – that is clearly the case,” said the business secretary, Peter Kyle.

What changed in that intervening period will be picked over for months, if not years.View image in fullscreenThe business secretary, Peter Kyle, acknowledged to the BBC on Sunday that there was a clear threat to Starmer’s leadership. Photograph: BBCBy Sunday afternoon, Starmer’s allies were coming to terms with the fact that despite weeks of denials, the prime minister was about to announce his resignation, and the country was heading towards its seventh prime minister in 10 years.

‘I must serve the people’Throughout the Makerfield campaign, Starmer insisted he would resist any attempt by the Greater Manchester mayor to unseat him. “I’m not going to walk away,” Starmer said on 18 May. “I feel very strongly I must serve the people who voted me into office.”

Allies said Starmer had defied his critics before and would do so again. But privately, they admitted much would depend on the size of Burnham’s majority.“I suspect Keir’s resistance will fade quickly if Andy wins so big that it looks like he could save dozens of colleagues’ jobs at a general election,” said one No 10 source a day before the byelection.

When Burnham secured his majority of nearly 10,000 – comfortably more, overall, than the combined vote of Reform UK and Restore Britain, even some close to the prime minister thought he might announce his departure that day.View image in fullscreenAndy Burnham with supporters on Friday after winning the Makerfield byelection. Photograph: Adam Vaughan/EPAInstead, Starmer repeated his determination to remain in office, before heading to the prime minister’s official country retreat Chequers to spend the weekend with his wife, Victoria.

On Friday, Starmer appeared to signal different things to different people about his intentions. One source told the BBC he had spent the day talking to cabinet ministers not about whether he could stay in office, but what arguments he would make in a leadership contest.To Kyle however, the prime minister seemed more circumspect.

“He was very mindful of the interests of the country,” the business secretary told the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg on Sunday.“In that conversation he repeatedly said to me and asked my advice on what I believe the country wanted at this moment in different circumstances.”View image in fullscreenKeir Starmer was reportedly put under pressure by his cabinet to set out plans to step down.

Photograph: Kin Cheung/PASome ministers who had previously been loyal to Starmer warned him on Friday they would not remain so for long, with an intervention expected at cabinet on Tuesday if he did not set out a timetable for departure.And by Saturday, Starmer was so certain he would be leaving office that he began drafting his resignation statement, with the help of his inner circle.‘No one wants rolling resignations’Part of the prime minister’s frustration has been that he believes Burnham can be beaten in a contest.

Starmer’s allies watched the outgoing Greater Manchester mayor during his Question Time appearance during the campaign and thought he seemed untested and light on detail.But over the weekend, it became increasingly clear to Starmer that the contest had been all but decided before it had begun.With Burnham resting at home with his family, his allies were telling Starmer’s aides that the 200 MP supporters they had signed up had climbed to 300 – nearly the entire parliamentary Labour party.

And while seven cabinet ministers – Ed Miliband, Yvette Cooper, John Healey, Shabana Mahmood, Heidi Alexander, Douglas Alexander and Jonathan Reynolds – had all privately told the prime minister to set a date for his departure, there was a risk of public resignations in the coming days.Transition timetable: what a Starmer autumn handover could look likeRead moreOne cabinet minister, who had been ready to resign, said on Sunday afternoon: “There was a view that resignations would be required if K