Nigel Farage has predicted that Sir Keir Starmer will be removed as Prime Minister before the end of May, declaring that the Mandelson vetting scandal has destroyed the leader’s credibility and that Labour MPs will move against him once the local election results are in.
Speaking at a rally in Barnsley on Wednesday as he continued his campaign ahead of the 7 May elections, the Reform UK leader said Sir Keir would “cling on” until polling day but that a damaging set of results would trigger a move against him from within his own party. “If Labour get obliterated in the Red Wall, in South Wales and in Scotland, then he’ll be gone by the end of May,” Farage told supporters.
The Reform leader accused the Prime Minister of bypassing proper procedure in appointing Lord Mandelson as Britain’s US ambassador despite the peer having failed security vetting checks — access to which, Farage noted, would have included intelligence shared with the Americans at the highest level, including nuclear capability. “The very thought that Mandelson was even chosen in the first place is quite extraordinary,” he said. “The thought that the PM wanted this guy to be there on Pennsylvania Avenue without any vetting process having been done is astonishing.”
Farage also turned on Sir Keir’s self-styled image as a process-driven professional. “The man of process has ridden roughshod over normal procedure,” he said. “His actions and his judgement are seriously in doubt. I think his credibility is shot to pieces.”
The attacks landed on the same day Sir Keir declined during Prime Minister’s Questions to deny that Downing Street had also explored giving his former director of communications Matthew Doyle — now Lord Doyle — a senior diplomatic posting. Lord Doyle had the Labour whip withdrawn earlier this year after it emerged he had campaigned on behalf of a friend charged with possessing indecent images of children.
Sir Keir has shed several senior figures in recent weeks amid the fallout from the scandal. Olly Robbins was sacked as the top Foreign Office official last week, while Morgan McSweeney previously departed as chief of staff and Chris Wormald was removed as head of the civil service in February.
Farage suggested the pattern would continue. “He’ll sack everybody around him, even if he’s the last man standing. He’ll never, ever take responsibility himself for anything that he’s done,” he said.
On the elections themselves, Farage claimed Reform’s canvassing showed Labour “crumbling in its heartlands” and predicted his party would win more than a thousand council seats in England, mount a serious challenge to Plaid Cymru in Wales, and potentially finish ahead of Labour in Scotland.
