A member of the House of Lords and former Labour MP has set an expiry date for Sir Keir Starmer’s reign over Labour, urging backbenchers to rebel against No10.
Joining GB News, Baroness Kate Hoey argued the sheer number of U-turns reveals “something wrong somewhere at the heart of Government”.
And Baroness Hoey did not hold back from hitting out at Sir Keir’s record thus far after the Prime Minister performed his 13th U-turn since entering No10 in July 2024.
Earlier today, Sir Keir endured a brutal grilling from Tory leader Kemi Badenoch in the Commons just hours after he announced the climbdown.
On the People’s Channel, GB News star Martin Daubney asked the peer: “Do we have a Labour Government here that simply has no clue what it stands for because it changes its mood, like the weather?”
In response, Baroness Hoey said: “I don’t think the public mind an occasional change of policy if there’s been a real campaign about it and people understand that it’s gone on for some time.
“But to have so many U-turns shows that there’s something wrong somewhere at the heart of Government, where they’re not looking at the unforeseen consequences.
“They’re not looking at the costings properly, they’re not looking at the wider implications, and they’ve not talked to ‘ordinary people’.
Baroness Hoey urged backbenchers to rebel against the Government over matters which were not mentioned in the party’s 2024 manifesto
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GB NEWS
“So you’re getting this kind of blob of people who are making decisions and then discovering that not only does the public not like it, but many of their own backbenchers don’t like it.”
And Sir Keir will soon be faced with the consequences of his U-turns through a “behind-the-scenes” coup to oust him from No10, Baroness Hoey warned.
“He is now going to be faced with an even greater attempt to get them out, not in the near future, but over the next few months,” she added.
But the former MP attributed part of Sir Keir’s issue with popularity stems from the fact many of their “awful” policies were not stapled to their manifesto back in 2024.
Sir Keir Starmer received a grilling during PMQs today
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PA
She said: “So many of the awful things that they’ve been doing have not even been in their manifesto that is something that I think people really should be picking up.
“That big argument that we’re having over the Chagos Islands, giving away a British territory and then paying Mauritius to take it.
“I mean, the whole thing is disgraceful. But that wasn’t in the manifesto. That has been pushed through like so many other issues.
“That is why I imagine some backbench Labour MPs who think this might be their last couple of years in Parliament, will start to, I hope, sit back and actually rebel.”
From winter fuel payments and trans women to national insurance and grooming gangs, Sir Keir has rowed back on a litany of policy pledges during his time in Downing Street amid fears over a backbench backlash.
He fell under particular scrutiny during Prime Minister’s Questions today while Mrs Badenoch laid into a slew of Sir Keir’s climbdown.
Smirking across the despatch box, Mrs Badenoch slammed: “Let’s look at some other things the Prime Minister didn’t get right first time, starting with the family farm tax.
“Some farmers were so terrified they sold their farms last year only for the Prime Minister to U-turn two days before Christmas.
“Will he apologise for the misery he’s caused countless farmers?”
But the Prime Minister simply retorted: “The principle we put in place on inheritance tax is the right one, we listened…what we’re doing is turning the country around.
“Yes, we’ve changed the country. We’ve changed the failed approach of the last Tory Government.”
Mrs Badenoch fired back: “I didn’t hear an apology to the farmers.
“Has he even apologised to the member for Penrith, who stood up for farmers only to have the whip removed?
“This Prime Minister treats his MPs so badly. They follow his lead and he hangs them out to dry every time.”