Sir Keir Starmer is under pressure on multiple fronts amid the fallout from Lord Peter Mandelson’s sacking.
While there is no direct plot to oust him, the left-wing MP Richard Burgon has predicted the prime minister will be gone by May 2026 if next year’s local elections go badly.
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It’s worth noting that Mr Burgon has never been a fan of the current Labour leadership and Sir Keir has the full public backing of his cabinet – not to mention a large parliamentary majority.
So, how can you oust a UK prime minister?
Confidence Vote
A core convention of the UK’s constitution is that the government must be able to command the confidence of the House of Commons. While governments don’t have to consistently prove they “hold confidence”, they are expected to resign or trigger a general election if they lose a confidence vote.
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There are different ways in which this can come about.
The leader of the Opposition can table a vote of no confidence, which must explicitly state that the House has lost confidence in the government (rather than simply being critical of the leadership).
The last time this brought down an administration was in 1979, when James Callaghan’s minority Labour government, plagued by a wave of strikes and high inflation, was defeated by 311 to 310. The knife-edge vote triggered a general election, which the Conservatives won under Margaret Thatcher – and Labour did not return to power for 18 years.
However, it is rare for governments to be defeated in confidence motions (before Callaghan, the last time this happened was Stanley Baldwin in 1924).
Often, under-fire prime ministers will bring about their own confidence vote, usually by declaring a key policy as a “matter of confidence”.
This tactic was deployed by John Major in 1993, when, threatened with a general election, Eurosceptic Tory rebels got behind his controversial Maastricht Treaty on the foundation of the European Union.
Leadership challenges
Political parties also have their own rules around deposing a leader.
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As we saw in the dying days of the Conservatives’ time in office, a confidence vote can be triggered if 15% of Tory MPs write to the chairman of the party’s 1922 backbench committee requesting one.
Theresa May and Boris Johnson faced such votes, and while they narrowly survived them, it damaged their authority and they did not last much longer in office (more on that below).
The Labour Party has a different set of rules. The only way a leadership challenge can be forced is if a challenger, or challengers, are nominated by at least 20% of Labour MPs (which would be 80 MPs on current numbers).
The challenger would have to be a member of parliament, ruling out someone like Greater Manchester mayor Andy Burnham – who, in any case, has shut down mounting rumours he intends to return to Westminster to take on Sir Keir.
The leader being challenged would not have to secure any nominations and would automatically be on the ballot paper.
However, it is difficult to pull off a coup of this sort, given the high number of nominations required. While Gordon Brown faced open calls to go in 2008-9, the plotters could not get anyone serious to put their names forward as a challenger.
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Ministerial resignations
A tried and tested method of forcing out prime ministers is cabinet resignations.
After Boris Johnson survived a no-confidence vote in July 2022, Conservative Party rules meant he was protected from another one for a year.
So, when he was embroiled in another scandal regarding the disgraced former deputy chief whip Chris Pincher, it sparked a mass revolt of cabinet ministers that made his position untenable.
Credibility damage
However, it doesn’t always have to be ministerial resignations that tip prime ministers over the edge.
Liz Truss, who replaced Mr Johnson, resigned after just 44 days in office when her mini-budget sparked such economic turmoil she had to rapidly row back on most of her measures.
This damaged her credibility to such an extent that she conceded she could not go on.
Theresa May also faced difficulty commanding authority. While she survived two confidence votes during her time in office, her EU withdrawal deal was rejected three times by parliament as she failed to get hard-line Brexiteers on side, and she was forced to resign.
Tony Blair won an unprecedented three elections for Labour, but his standing suffered in the wake of the Iraq War. Following pressure from within the party to quit, and a plot to replace him with Gordon Brown, he announced an early departure date, resigning mid-way through his final term.
