MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
The battle begins. That's a headline out of the United Kingdom today.
STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
After a week of political rebellion and resignation letters of cabinet members, contenders are emerging to challenge Prime Minister Keir Starmer for his job. We do not know when or if Starmer would go.
MARTIN: To look back over this tumultuous week in British politics, we go to NPR's Lauren Frayer in London.
Lauren, good morning.
LAUREN FRAYER, BYLINE: Good morning.
MARTIN: Prime Minister Starmer has a huge majority in parliament. The next election isn't expected for three years. Why would his party replace him now?
FRAYER: Basically comes down to fear of the far right taking power. Let me back up. Starmer is center left. His party is called Labour. They won that big majority less than two years ago. Seen as sort of a return to stability after a revolving door of prime ministers through Britain's exit from the European Union, which was a little bit of a roller coaster. Since then, Starmer's approval ratings have plunged to some of the lowest in history. Polls show voters think he has not delivered on promises to improve government services, help with the cost of living. He's seen as kind of wooden, unable to connect with regular folks, in contrast to the populist, chain-smoking Nigel Farage, who casts himself as a man of the people. And his anti-immigrant party trounced Labour in municipal elections last week. That has sent the political establishment into a frenzy, fearing the same could happen at the national level.
MARTIN: What does Starmer say about all this?
FRAYER: He says, you know, a lot of the things dragging down his approval rating are out of his control - the Iran war, Trump administration's tariffs. The British economy is growing. The health service wait times are down, so is immigration. Starmer acknowledges, though, he hasn't communicated that well. Here he is in a speech to the nation earlier this week.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
PRIME MINISTER KEIR STARMER: I know I have my doubters, and I know I need to prove them wrong, and I will.
FRAYER: He basically wants more time, but it doesn't look like the party is willing to give that to him.
MARTIN: So who might replace him then?
FRAYER: Probably one of his former allies. None have filed for candidacy yet, though. We had this extraordinary scene this week when King Charles came to parliament, read out the prime minister's agenda for the coming year. But we don't know if this prime minister will be in office to implement it. Politics here feels like the popular TV show "Traitors." You know, the ruling party is divided into those faithful to the prime minister and those who are secretly plotting against him. Here's what it sounded like this week as cabinet secretaries went back and forth in and out of 10 Downing Street.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: Are you going to resign, health secretary?
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #2: Are you going to challenge the prime minister?
FRAYER: The health secretary Wes Streeting did quit the cabinet. He might challenge Starmer. Former Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner has been cleared of wrongdoing in a tax scandal. That might allow her to run. Polls show the most popular candidate, though, would be Andy Burnham, nicknamed King of the North. He's the mayor of Manchester. Not an MP, so not eligible to run. He first needs to run in a special election for a vacant seat in parliament. That would likely be in late June. He has to win that election, which the far right is contesting, too. And only after that would he be able to challenge Starmer. So we're looking at a long summer of politics here.
MARTIN: So after all that, he could actually stay in office.
FRAYER: Yeah. Actually, that special election will test Burnham. This is in an area where Farage's Reform Party swept municipal elections. And Farage says he's going to, quote, "throw absolutely everything at that election." So if Burnham wins, he goes up against Starmer with, you know, ammunition to say, look, I defeated the far right here, I can do it nationally. If he doesn't win that election, Starmer may be left with no challenger, and the country may be back where we started after a whole lot of drama, and some would say, you know, attention diverted from fixing the cost of living and everything else.
MARTIN: That is NPR's Lauren Frayer in London.
Lauren, thank you.
FRAYER: You're welcome. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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