How could Labour remove Keir Starmer? Four possible routes

Many Labour MPs believe Keir Starmer will not survive as Labour leader for long enough to fight the next election. What they cannot agree on, however – even after a disastrous set of results in this week’s elections – is how his departure might come about. The Labour rulebook makes it notoriously difficult to unseat a party leader: none has been formally ejected in the postwar period, though some, including Tony Blair, have resigned under pressure from their own MPs. A curveball was thrown into the mix on Saturday when the backbencher Catherine West launched a leadership challenge. West, the MP for Hornsey and Friern Barnet and a junior Foreign Office minister until she was sacked in the reshuffle last year, announced that unless a cabinet minister came forward to challenge Starmer for the leadership by Monday morning, she would do it herself. If the Labour party does want to oust Starmer, here are some of the ways it can do so. 1. The 81 MPs rule According to the Labour party rulebook, someone seeking to replace a sitting leader must secure the written support of 20% of the parliamentary party, which is currently 81 MPs. Anyone who garners that many nominations can be put forward for a leadership contest, with the sitting leader qualifying automatically should they wish to remain in post. There is no evidence that West has those numbers and she is being described as a stalking horse, a figure used to test the waters or mount a challenge on behalf of a third party. …