Starmer may resign next week

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer may be forced to resign within a week, Bloomberg noted citing sources in the ruling Labor Party.

The reason for such conversations was a scandal with the appointment of Peter Mandelson, who was friends with American financier Jeffrey Epstein convicted of pedophilia to the post of British ambassador to the United States. This scandal has already led to the resignation of the British Prime Minister's Chief of Staff Morgan McSweeney, who resigned on Sunday.

According to Bloomberg, some Labor Party MPs were surprised that Starmer still retains his post, although it was he who authorized Mandelson's appointment as ambassador. The agency said that some employees at 10 Downing Street are privately urging government members to convince the prime minister to resign, or threaten their resignation to provoke his departure. According to an adviser to one of the ministers, the probability that Starmer will resign next week is "50-50."

The agency said that to retain his post, Starmer may offer to return to the government his former deputy Angela Rayner, who left the cabinet in September amid a scandal with the non-payment of a stamp duty when buying an apartment in the south of England. Starmer can also put Energy Secretary Ed Miliband at the head of a higher-status ministry. Earlier, both Rayner and Miliband were named among the likely candidates for the post of prime minister in the event of Starmer's resignation.

Among other contenders, the British media also singled out Health Secretary Wes Streeting, Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood, Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper and Secretary for Defense John Healey and his deputy Alistair Carns.

Starmer's possible resignation will not automatically mean new general elections. Instead, the Labor Party may hold a party vote to elect a new leader who will head the government. This is exactly what the Conservatives did in 2022, having replaced the prime minister twice in a year (Boris Johnson and Liz Truss).