Why I'm willing to launch a leadership challenge against Keir Starmer
Catherine West MP explains why she wants the Cabinet to select a new Prime Minister
Catherine West is a Labour MP representing the north London constituency Hornsey and Friern Barnet. I have known her for almost as long as I’ve lived in the UK, mainly because she is Australian-born.
Fluent in five languages, including Mandarin, she has had an interesting life journey, growing up in country Victoria, graduating from Sydney University, working as a social worker, teacher, with refugees, then in local government in the UK and finally as an MP, entering the House of Commons in 2015.
If I had to choose one word to describe her professional demeanour, it would be gentle.
So I nearly fell sideways when I was listening to Times Radio on the weekend and heard Ayesha Hazarika announce that her Labour colleague Catherine West would be declaring a leadership challenge if the Cabinet did not announce by Monday a transition process to replace Sir Keir Starmer as Prime Minister of the UK.
West is the unlikeliest political assassin you could imagine. It would be like your favourite auntie inviting you over for a cup of tea, only to find out she had served you poison.
Her move also shocked her family in Australia.
Her brother, Marcus West, based in Sydney, told me: ‘A friend messaged me saying “good on Cath!” And I was like “what are you talking about?” He told me to check the news. And yes - it was a big shock to all of us! Cath is a very measured person, so we were taken aback!’
‘I’m sure she’s thought long and hard about it. She wouldn’t have done something this “big” without significant reflection.’
I spoke with Catherine West earlier this afternoon to ask her why, why her and what her motivations were.
Below is a lightly edited transcript of our interview.
Catherine West: I have a lot of respect for Keir; he’s done a lot of heavy lifting for the party to make us electable.
But after six years, I think this next phase of trying to beat Reform will be very, very challenging.
Latika M Bourke: So Catherine, you will obviously have seen how much damage changing leaders did to Labor in Australia, and it’s something they now have sworn off — they just won’t do it anymore.
CW: So, it didn’t help the Conservatives either.
But I also think it’s not just that he got in for one year; he has actually had six years, and I think the challenge is different.
The first challenge was around internal building blocks towards an election, and the first two years in.
But I think you need an enormous amount of energy and a slightly different plan for taking on Reform, and I think we do need a fresh approach.
I’m not taking a view about which part of the party that comes from or how that is shaped.
I’m just calling to see how many MPs agree with me. And then I’ll discuss that with the Party Chair and see if we can work towards a timetable. Because obviously the way it works is if you do have the support of 80 members of Parliament, you can approach the Chair of the Party to undertake a timetable process.
So it’s not going to be rushed, and (Party Chair) Anna Turley is actually a friend of mine.
She will then look at the timings and things and develop that process. And so, you know, it’s not this thing that oh, we’re throwing people away.
And also, I’ve said right from the start that I felt there was a solution if the cabinet could sit down and get around one person.
LMB: And that’s still your preferred option, right?
CW: It’s still my preferred option because I actually think Keir is very good on International Affairs. He could easily have an international role.
LMB: What, like David Cameron or something, make him foreign secretary?
CW: Exactly, something like that. He’s very well respected abroad, and also I think a lot of the Reform challenge is domestic policy.
LMB: Which he’s not into?
CW: Well, it’s just that he hasn’t done the things we’ve done. Some of us who have been on the Local Authority where we’ve built homes, or we’ve introduced school meals for all the children, or the school uniforms, or disability or mental health services.
Do you know what I mean? He hasn’t necessarily got that experience.
LMB: Yes.
CW: He does in Home Office Affairs and Justice. The other thing to do would be to give them Justice but that’s not really what I need to do.
What I need to do as a backbench MP who has a bit of perspective is to call for the party to have a think.
And also to really develop a strategy that will work to combat some of the challenges from Reform, where people may have voted Labour before, but they’re now voting Reform.
And I know that’s also a problem in Australia.
LMB: Massively.
CW: Because a seat that’s gone from the Liberals [to One Nation].
LMB: It’s the first time One Nation’s ever broken through, and we like we have preferential voting, so it’s even huger in our system.
CW: Exactly, exactly.
LMB: But Catherine, I just want to ask you again about this chaos thing, because it will, if you do do this, it would have taken you two years to get to where the Tories got after 10.
Do you not worry that you’re saying to the public we’re just as chaotic as they were?
CW: I think the way to frame it, the way I’m framing it in my own mind, is under Keir Starmer, the Labour Party was made electable again, and we have an enormous debt of gratitude to Keir for that transformation which took place between April 2020 when we’re still in COVID, all the way through to 2026 and we’ve had two years in government.
And we have got some really good bills through, like the Workers Rights Bill, the Renters Reform Act, we’ve had some really good things — Hillsborough, there have been a number of areas of progress.
However, the big challenge for the Labour Party is in our post-industrialised heartlands, is developing a strategy which convinces in those parts of the country where we really need to make that difference.
And we currently have MPS all over the place in seaside towns in cities, in country towns, in Birmingham, Scotland, Manchester, but we’re not really using them, our messaging doesn’t necessarily match the challenge, and I do feel that we need to just stocktake for a bit so that we can really build up and tool up.
The other thing we need to do is we will have to do some fundraising because Reform have just been given a £5 million gift, which is being investigated but in the meantime they probably spent it that’s probably how they got all those people elected in Wales.
And we do need to be holding them to account over that.
So there are a number of challenges, that’s not to say that we don’t still face a challenge from the Conservatives, and that’s not to say that we don’t face a challenge from the Greens.
In my patch, it was the Greens who took seats, but that’s a little bit more of a normal phenomenon because what happens when you are an incumbent Labour government is you naturally lose a bit in your heartlands because you can’t just say anything, you’ve got to actually say well with the government, we can’t promise that.
And so we were expecting some losses, but the losses were colossal — Lewisham Lambeth, Hackney.
LMB: Southwark! My area, lost control.
CW: Southwark, I know, I know! So it really is challenging times.
LMB: And have you spoken to the PM since you made this call?
CW: No, I’m speaking to the Chief Whip and to the Chair of the Party. But in a way, they are the leader; they’re the leadership structure.
LMB: It’s just that I thought you got along well with Keir?
CW: I do, I do. But I also feel out of 403 MPs, he’s probably got quite a lot to do, but I’d be very happy to take a call from him.
And also, I think it’s important that we have the debate dispassionately.
This is not about him as an individual or anything like that. I’m not cross about anything. I just feel that on the evidence that we saw on Thursday evening, if we continue this way, we will end up with very, very few members of parliament in the next Parliament.
And also, you know, it’s just so important that we maintain that majority.
There’s problems with having a 403 number of MPs, but there’s a lot of problems with not having enough MPs. Perhaps, 18 months ago you could have said, ‘Oh well, don’t worry, you can lose a few MPs, you’ll be fine, if you replicate the results from last Thursday, across the MP body, we would be losing heavily in those areas.’
LMB: And so, this is not about you being sacked from the ministry.
CW: No, no.
LMB: This is not a grudge or anything?
CW: No. And I think hopefully I am sort of, well, past the 10-year mark as an MP. I consider myself to be a senior MP with quite a deal of experience now, both national and local.
And I’m not taking a view on who the candidates are. I am keen to try and get us to think. I don’t think it’s correct just to sort of allow a big loss like that to happen and not to hold the leadership to account.
LMB: And why do you think Catherine, you have the guts to do this alone when no one else is, because, as I understand it, knifing PMs is not really in British Labour’s DNA, the way it is or has been in Australian Labor’s DNA?
CW: I just thought, as I saw council after council falling, I just said on the WhatsApp group, I said to Anna, our Chair of the Party, I said: ‘Anna, please reassure me that we have a process in place for change at the top?’ And she sort of sent back something quite mealy-mouthed about: ‘Well, in the next few days we’ve got some new announcements, meaning Gordon Brown and Harriet Harman are going to come back into Number 10.’
LMB: Oh Lord.
CW: They’re wonderful, but it’s not an image of the future.
LMB: No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. And actually, I’d argue, Catherine, I mean, it’s obviously my opinion, but this is part of the problem, that no one is coming up with a fresh agenda.
CW: No.
LMB: Looking back is not the answer.
CW: No. And also, it just makes us look really dated.
LMB: Yes. Totally agree.
CW: And I’ve been saying quite politely, the thing is, in their day we didn’t really have Reform, it’s a bit like: ‘In their day we didn’t really have televisions.’
Oh dear, even though I love them both dearly but it’s not it’s not the image that you want to portray as a sort of a fighting machine that’s going to take on Farage.
Anyway, so why me? I don’t know. I suppose I do feel quite strongly about it. And also, even though, you know, clearly I backed Jeremy back in the day, but I was also sacked by him.
I’ve been sacked by Keir, do you know what I mean? I think I’ve just been around a long time.
LMB: Maybe you’re just a rebel.
CW: I think you don’t really, you just stop caring as much, not what people think of you, because I do care about what people think of me, but you want to do the right thing.
And then I’ve had the most unbelievable number of messages saying thank you.
LMB: Really?
CW: Thank you for just saying what needed to be said. Yes.
LMB: Interesting.
CW: Yes, from interestingly, not necessarily from a lot of Party, people more from friends or people in the general public.
They seem to like that somebody who’s clearly of a party can take such a dispassionate but quite brutal approach to a colleague.
LMB: So you haven’t lost the Australian in you, Catherine?!
CW: No, I haven’t really.
But I also think — I don’t know why me of 403 — but I suppose a lot of them already are on the front bench, aren’t they, so people who are ministers, can’t say anything. That takes out about 60 or 70 of them?
LMB: Yeah, I don’t think that’s quite the answer.
CW: So let’s say there’s 300 left, but I still think I don’t know. It might be he survives. He could be the Harold Wilson who just survives, who brought together left and right, we’ll see.