Sir Keir Starmer is considering sacking Rachel Reeves as Chancellor in a sweeping post-election reshuffle that Labour insiders are describing as a last-ditch attempt to salvage his authority after what is widely expected to be a disastrous set of local election results on 7 May.
According to sources close to the government, Downing Street has pencilled in significant changes to the Cabinet for the days immediately following the local polls, with Reeves’s position among those under consideration. One insider described the plan as “one final roll of the dice” to re-establish the Prime Minister’s grip on his administration before potential leadership challenges can coalesce.
Under the scenario being discussed, Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper would move to the Treasury as Chancellor — a significant promotion that would fundamentally reshape the senior team. However, the proposal is already generating internal resistance before it has been confirmed. Labour’s soft-left faction is understood to favour Ed Miliband for the role, and any move that bypasses him risks inflaming tensions within the parliamentary party at precisely the moment the Prime Minister can least afford further division.
The suggestion that Starmer might move against Reeves has surprised some observers given the two are regarded as politically close. One adviser pushed back on that framing, pointing to the Prime Minister’s willingness to remove his former chief of staff Morgan McSweeney. “It’s not true that he’s too close to Rachel to sack her. Keir’s heard all these arguments before. He now thinks sacking people saves his own skin in the short term,” the adviser said.
Not everyone is convinced the strategy will work. One Westminster source warned that reshuffles tend to create more problems than they solve. “Reshuffles always create more enemies than friends. This will certainly be no exception,” they said. One Labour MP went further, suggesting the Prime Minister had already lost the authority to reshape his top team at all, let alone remove a figure as senior as the Chancellor.
The backdrop to all of this is the continuing fallout from the Peter Mandelson affair, which has cost Starmer the support of significant portions of his Cabinet and parliamentary party. A senior Labour source did not hold back in assessing the situation: “This is the last gasp of a dying man. He’s going to have to be dragged out of No 10 with his fingernails clinging to the wallpaper.”
