Starmer seeks to reassert position with ex-PM Brown’s return

[LONDON] Former prime minister Gordon Brown was appointed UK special envoy on global finance as part of Keir Starmer’s attempt to patch up the rival factions in his Labour Party after it suffered dismal local election results. 

Brown, who served as Labour chancellor and then premier from 1997 until 2010, is set to develop new international finance partnerships to support defence and security-related investment with a particular focus on European ties, Starmer’s office said on Saturday (May 9). That includes establishing multilateral finance mechanisms – something Chancellor Rachel Reeves has been pursuing with limited success in recent months.

The appointment is part of Starmer’s efforts to signal to both his ruling Labour party and the wider public that he wants to unite the party, after around 30 MPs called for him to set out a timetable for his departure. Some named Greater Manchester mayor Andy Burnham as their preferred successor and called for him to be allowed to stand for parliament.

Former deputy prime minister Angela Rayner and Health Secretary Wes Streeting had also been weighing leadership bids ahead of the local elections. Rayner is yet to make a statement, and Streeting indicated he wouldn’t make an immediate challenge while refusing to explicitly endorse Starmer. 

“Across the country we’ve seen some extremely bad results for the Labour Party,” Streeting said. “We have to respect the voters, take the feedback on the chin and accept that the government nationally bears a huge amount of responsibility losing through no fault of their own.”

Other cabinet ministers urged MPs to not challenge Starmer’s authority, while some including Ed Miliband, Lisa Nandy, Shabana Mahmood and Yvette Cooper offered more tepid support. Miliband recently suggested to Starmer in a private meeting that he should consider an orderly transition of power, The Times reported on Thursday.

Starmer on Saturday also appointed another influential Labour grandee, Harriet Harman, as his adviser on women and girls on Saturday.

While both Harman and Brown are highly respected among the Labour parliamentary party, reaching for the old guard in an effort to signify change is likely to have limited impact. A number of Labour MPs privately criticised the decision to the BBC. 

It will also be seen as an attempt to stave off any leadership challenge – party grandees have often played a pivotal role in ousting and electing leaders across the political spectrum. Brown has already been influential in pushing the government to introduce measures to alleviate child poverty. 

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Labour is on course to lose more than 1,400 of the roughly 2,500 council seats it was defending across England as a result of a surge in support for Nigel Farage’s Reform UK. Labour also lost support in Wales, Scotland and saw many London seats fall to the Greens. 

Starmer plans further announcements and a speech on Monday to set out what his office described as “the next steps in his plan to build a stronger and fairer Britain”.

In an article for the Guardian, he said he took responsibility for the result and was prepared to reflect on the outcome, though warned that the “right approach” for the party and country was to be “unifying rather than dividing”.

“While we must respond to the message that voters have sent us, that doesn’t mean tacking right or left,” Starmer wrote. “It means bringing together a broad political movement, being assertive about our values, bold in our vision and addressing people’s demands.” BLOOMBERG