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BRITISH PRIME MINISTER Keir Starmer said he would “never walk away from the country I love” as he attempts to move on from speculation about his future in No 10 after surviving renewed calls for his resignation.
Starmer said on a visit to Hertfordshire: “I will never walk away from the mandate I was given to change this country.
“I will never walk away from the people that I’m charged with fighting for, and I will never walk away from the country that I love, and that is the country who I truly believe we are, a compassionate, reasonable, live and let live country, a diverse country where, given half the chance, will help each other out.
“That is who we are as a country, and I want to serve every single part of that country, the country that I love.
“The fight coming up in politics, the real fight is not in the Labour Party. It’s with the right-wing politics that challenges that, the politics of Reform, the politics of divide, divide, divide, grievance, grievance, grievance.
“That will tear our country apart. That is the fight that we are in, and I will be in that fight as long as I have breath in my body.”
Starmer’s fighting words come as Labour figures continue to come out in support of their embattled leader.
Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham declared his support for Starmer, while former Labour leader Ed Miliband insisted he is “not going to run” for the party leadership in any potential contest.
Burnham said he spoke to Starmer about the Labour Party needing a “strong sense of a stronger team again”, as he called for briefings to be dialled down.
Starmer’s participation in a community visit today is an attempt to show he is focused on easing the cost-of-living burden after chairing a routine meeting of his Cabinet, a day after his top ministers rallied round him.
The public display of Cabinet support came after Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar urged him to quit amid the fallout from the Peter Mandelson scandal.
Mandelson was appointed to Washington as British ambassador by Starmer, despite knowing that Mandelson’s links with Jeffrey Epstein continued after the financier’s conviction for child sex offences.
Starmer is expected to continue efforts to shake up his No 10 operation, with top civil servant Chris Wormald rumoured to be on his way out in the coming days.
His chief of staff Morgan McSweeney and communications chief Tim Allan have already departed as Starmer seeks to revive his fortunes after a bruising start to 2026.
Asked at a think-tank event in central London whether Starmer has his full support, Burnham said: “Yes, he has my support.
“The Government has my support and they had my support when I put myself forward for the by-election.”
His comments comes after Burnham was blocked from standing in the upcoming Gorton and Denton by-election by the Labour Party’s ruling national executive committee.
He also called for “stability” in the Labour Party at the Resolution Foundation’s event on working-age families.
Speaking to BBC Breakfast, former Labour leader and current Energy Minister Ed Miliband acknowledged that Starmer had faced a moment of “peril” yesterday.
“I make no bones about that but, as a collective body, the Cabinet, the Labour Party looked at the alternatives of going down this road of a chaotic leadership election, trying to depose a prime minister, and they said ‘no, that’s not for us’,” he added.
Miliband also insisted he did not agree that Starmer would not be in post much longer, and said the Prime Minister had shown a determination to fulfil his mandate after a “very, very damaging episode”.
He said that the Labour Party had “looked over the precipice and thought the right thing to do is to support our leader”.
“I think what Keir has done after a very, very damaging episode, by taking responsibility, by showing that there needs to be change, is shown a determination to fulfil the mandate on which he was elected,” Miliband added.
Miliband, who said he had “very limited contact” with Mandelson, further remarked that Starmer is “somebody who is in politics for 100% the right reasons”.
Speaking later on Sky News, it was put to Miliband that his message sounded a bit like a leadership pitch, he replied: “Absolute baloney.”
Asked whether he would rule out running, Miliband said: “I’m not running for the leadership, no.”
When further asked whether he would rule out running rather than saying he was not currently running, he said: “Yes, yes, I’m not going to run.”
Meanwhile, Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch, writing in the Daily Telegraph, said Starmer should resign as he had “proved incapable of doing the things a prime minister needs to do”.
But with the threat to his position appearing to recede, Starmer is expected to travel to Germany at the end of the week to attend the Munich Security Conference, where concern about the future of the transatlantic alliance is likely to be high on the agenda.
