Starmer told he is to blame as Rayner sacked

Labour leader advised to ‘look in a mirror’ over election failure as major party reshuffle starts

SIR KEIR STARMER was last night told by senior Left-wing Labour MPs to “look in a mirror” for someone to blame for the party’s dismal election results as he sacked his chairman.

Sir Keir began a major reshuffle of his top team, removing Angela Rayner as his party chairman, prompting an outcry from Left-wing Labour MPs.

However, he was unable to remove Ms Rayner from his top team altogether because her position as deputy leader is elected by the membership.

One former party adviser likened Sir Keir to Sir Iain Duncan Smith, the former Tory leader who was forced out of his party before he got the chance to fight a general election.

The adviser told The Sunday Telegraph that the problem with Sir Keir was that he “actually isn’t a politician. He has done four or five years as an MP, he has absolutely no roots”.

They added: “He seems out of control of himself. He seems to have lost any semblance of how to manage a political party, which is very similar to how Iain Duncan Smith became in the last days of his leadership.

“He is swinging like a punch drunk boxer on Saturday night.”

Ms Rayner, seen as one of his main rivals in any potential leadership race, took the blame for the party’s poor performance in the local elections and Hartlepool by-election.

A Labour source said: “Keir said he was taking full responsibility for the result of the elections – and he said we need to change.

“That means changing how we run our campaigns in the future. Angela will continue to play a senior role in Keir’s team.”

Sir Keir’s critics on the backbenches suggested he could not be taking responsibility for Thursday’s election results while sacking members of his front bench.

John McDonnell, the former shadow chancellor and key ally of former leader Jeremy Corbyn, accused him of “scapegoating everyone apart from himself ”.

“This isn’t leadership, it’s a cowardly avoidance of responsibility,” he said.

Jon Trickett and Ian Lavery, who are influential on the Left of the party, issued a joint statement warning that the party faced “obliteration if a cabal of middle-class Remainers continue to treat what was once Labour’s core support with contempt”.

“If the leader is looking for someone to blame for this dismal round, he must look in a mirror,” they said.

Labour MPs Ian Murray, Chris Bryant and Wes Streeting have been tipped to replace Ms Rayner as party chairman.

Other rumours swirled in Westminster of more departures from the front bench, with Anneliese Dodds, the shadow chancellor, Jon Ashworth, the shadow health secretary, and Andy McDonald, the shadow employment rights secretary, rumoured to be on their way out.

Other insiders said that Lisa Nandy, the shadow foreign secretary, was set to be moved. Nick Brown, Labour’s chief whip, was also “looking vulnerable”.

Mr McDonald, Ms Dodds and Mr Ashworth did not respond to a request for comment. Ms Nandy was approached for comment. A Labour spokesman denied last night that Mr McDonald had already left the shadow cabinet.

Ms Rayner, a former shadow minister in Mr Corbyn’s team, is generally viewed as allied with the Left.

She has been blamed by Labour sources for the poor performance of the party in Thursday’s elections, and is said to have supported the selection of Dr Paul Williams, Labour’s failed candidate in the Hartlepool by-election.

Dr Williams, former MP for Stockton South and a Remainer, was viewed as a poor choice for an area that voted to leave the EU by almost 70 per cent.