Editorial Board

The Labour Party’s Real Problem Isn’t Who Leads It

On the way out?

Photographer: Carl Court/Getty Images

UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s days appear numbered after Labour’s recent electoral drubbing. Yet the party’s problems go well beyond its choice of leader — and won’t be solved by his departure.

In local polls earlier this month, Labour hemorrhaged support to Nigel Farage’s Reform UK on the populist right and the Greens on the left. The instinct in Westminster is to personalize such defeats. Starmer is being urged to step down by at least 100 Labour MPs, with former Health Secretary Wes Streeting and others poised to challenge him for the leadership.