Anas Sarwar's bold call for Keir Starmer to go seems to have rallied Cabinet ministers to Prime Minister's side
Anas Sarwar's decision to call for Keir Starmer to go was a bold move amid the swelling sea of speculation about the Prime Minister's future.
And it must have been a difficult decision for him, given the "genuine friendship" between the two men. But the Scottish Labour leader made clear he feared that if the current turmoil persisted it would have a devastating effect on the party at the Holyrood elections in May.
Coming the day after the resignation of Morgan McSweeney, Keir Starmer's right hand man since he became Labour leader, Mr Sarwar perhaps felt his intervention would add momentum to the calls for a change at Number Ten.
In advance of his speech, commentators were asking whether Sir Keir could survive such a call from the leader of Scottish Labour.
But the immediate effect of Mr Sarwar's press conference in Glasgow seemed to be to prompt Cabinet ministers, who had thus far been virtually silent on the matter, to rally round and declare their support for Sir Keir.
Deputy Prime Minister David Lammy led the way and other key figures followed, including - most significantly -potential contenders Angela Rayner, Wes Streeting and Shabana Mahmood.
Labour's landslide majority in the July 2024 general election, in which the party won 37 seats in Scotland, gave a huge boost to Mr Sarwar’s hopes of ousting the SNP and replacing John Swinney as First Minister.
But the UK Government’s “too many mistakes” - as Mr Sarwar put it - now seem to have almost extinguished those hopes. Polls show the SNP with a clear lead and suggest Labour could be battling Nigel Farage’s Reform UK for second place. And the disgust at the latest revelations about Peter Mandelson and his relationship with sex offender Jeffrey Epstein can only make things worse.
But if Sir Keir were to stand down, the resulting leadership contest would almost certainly be damaging and divisive as well as being a distraction. It would not necessarily do anything to improve the party’s Holyrood prospects or take Mr Sarwar any close to Bute House.