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Starmer Tells Ministers To ‘Hold Their Nerve’ Amid Labour’s Nosedive In Opinion Polls

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Keir Starmer has told ministers to “hold their nerve” even after Labour faced a nosedive in the opinion polls.

The prime minister held his first political cabinet – meaning deputy party leader Lucy Powell could attend – of the year and tried to lift their spirits following a difficult 2025.

Hours after a new YouGov poll put Labour in third place behind Reform and the Tories, Starmer insisted that the government is facing “the fight of our political lives”.

According to a readout, he said: “A Labour government renewing the country or a Reform movement that feeds on grievance, decline and division.

“They want a weaker state, they want to inject bile into our communities, they want to appease Putin. This is the fight of our political lives and one that we must relish.

“I do not underestimate the scale of the task. But I have no doubt about this team. Governments do not lose because polls go down. They lose when they lose belief or nerve. We will do neither.”

Powell also addressed the meeting, thanking ministers for “embracing me as deputy leader” and saying she relished “helping to tell the story of whose side we are on”.

Powell served as Starmer’s Commons leader before she was booted out of the job in a September reshuffle.

During the regular cabinet meeting, the prime minister also told ministers that the cost of living will “remain our focus” regardless of what happens around the world.

He said the government would be judged at the next general election on whether the public “feel better off”, adding: “That will require hard work, focus and determination from all of us. Together, as a team, we will rise to that challenge and deliver for the whole country.”

It comes after Starmer tried to scare off potential rivals who might consider challenging his leadership over the weekend.

He told BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg ousting him would send the country into “chaos”, comparable to the last Tory government.

He said: “Nobody wants to go back to that. It’s not in our national interest.”

He also claimed the upcoming May elections are not a “referendum” on his leadership.

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Starmer Urged To Do More To Tackle Reform: ‘We Are At A Very Dangerous Moment’

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Keir Starmer needs a stronger plan to defeat the “existential threat” from populism, a former Labour strategist has warned.

Chris Powell, the advertising strategist who worked on Tony Blair’s 1997 landslide victory and brother to Starmer’s national security adviser Jonathan Powell, said there was a “new and terrifying” problem facing the UK.

Writing for the Guardian, he said Nigel Farage’s Reform UK could represent a danger to democracy and national institutions.

He compared the up and coming right-wing party to populist parties seen around the world which have eroded political systems once they are in power.

Powell said: “Here in the UK, where is the urgently needed counter plan on a huge scale, to thwart and head off such an existential threat? It is simply not in place, nor does it appear to be even at the planning stage.

“We are at a very dangerous moment. We simply cannot afford to allow Reform UK to have a free run, and become established and entrenched as a credible potential government in the minds of disenchanted voters.”

He warned the longer Reform remain “unchallenged”, the more “unthreatening and risk-free” they appear to voters.

“Just hoping that Reform and Farage implode, or that the rightwing vote will somehow fracture, is potentially suicidal for our freedom and democracy,” Powell said.

The strategist acknowledged that Labour has started to take “small steps” to counter Reform, but called for them to go further.

He pointed to the “fundamental reset” New Labour planned in September 1995, when they were ahead in the polls.

He urged Starmer to focus on “fighting fire with fire on messaging, call out lies and expose Farage’s simplistic solutions”.

Urging a “top-to-bottom media and communications overhaul”, he said Starmer needs to show he is on voters’ side and develop a digital strategy to disrupt the populist narrative online.

Since Reform UK took the lead in the opinion polls, Starmer has acknowledged the party as the government’s main opposition – despite having just five MPs.

The prime minister has tried to take apart their policies on various occasions, memorably saying last month that a Reform government would “tear Britain apart”.

Ministers have also been more outspoken about the negative consequences of Brexit, which Eurosceptic Farage spent decades campaigning for.

However, YouGov’s latest polling shows Reform has consistently been in the lead since April and finished 2025 on 26%, while Labour and the Tories trailed on 19%.

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Why Alaa Abd El-Fattah’s Case Might Well Hang Over Labour Into 2026

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Alaa Abd El-Fattah’s name has been circling political spheres for years now as successive British governments tried to secure his freedom.

The pro-democracy activist was detained in Egypt before being sentenced to five years behind bars in 2021 and accused of “spreading fake news”.

The UN later declared his arrest was unlawful. As he is British-Egyptian dual national, both the Conservatives and Labour made an effort to lobby for his freedom.

So it was a no-brainer for Keir Starmer, when he proudly announced El-Fattah had finally been released and was back in the UK on Boxing Day.

However, it soon emerged that El-Fattah had a history of posting offensive tweets, which included calls for violence against Zionists and the police.

Suddenly, the Conservatives and Reform UK began calling for the government to revoke the El-Fattah’s citizenship.

Tory shadow home secretary Chris Philp even called him a “scumbag”.

El-Fattah quickly apologised “unequivocally” for his own “shocking and hurtful” words from a decade ago, describing the posts as “mostly expressions of a young man’s anger and frustrations in a time of regional crises” in the Middle East.

No.10 welcomed his apology, admitting his social media posts were “abhorrent” but insisted it still welcomed the return “of a British citizen unfairly detained abroad”.

However, just hours later, the Foreign Office announced it was looking into how officials had ever been “unaware” of El-Fattah’s posts, some of which dated back to 2010.

Foreign secretary Yvette Cooper wrote to MPs admitting the long-standing procedures and due diligence arrangements had been “completely inadequate” in this case.

She added that it is “deeply concerned that the unexpected emergency of these historical tweets” and ministers’ own posts welcoming El-Fattah had caused distress to the Jewish community.

While a review into these “serious information failures” might quieten some of the temporary backlash around this particular case, it speaks to a wider communication problem with the government.

It’s just the latest area where there seems to have been a major flip-flop at the last moment. Critics have slammed it as a moment which perfectly captures the government’s incompetence.

It comes after major U-turns over other policies, like inheritance tax for family farms, the two-child benefit cap, and welfare cuts – to name just a few – all of which have accompanied a steep decline in the poll for Labour, just 18 months out from a landslide victory.

The topic of citizenship is one which is particularly divisive right now, too.

A new YouGov poll found twice as many Brits ( 36% compared to 19%) now think birthplace is key to being a UK citizen compared to two years ago.

Backlash over asylum hotels reached new heights in the summer, as far-right protests

Meanwhile, opposition politicians are calling for the government to withdraw from the European Convention on Human Rights to crack down on small boat crossings amid rising anti-immigration sentiment.

While Labour are only pushing to reform the ECHR right now, home secretary Shabana Mahmood has already introduced sweeping changes to the asylum system, including making refugee status temporary.

As More in Common chief Luke Tryl wrote on X, this backdrop means El-Fattah’s case could “become a defining moment” for the government.

He said it risks “crystallising” arguments the government “simply isn’t competent enough to be in control or, more than that, has badly out of line priorities”.

With the challenges already mounting up for Labour as it heads into 2026, the government’s opponents can be expected to continue pressing this matter for some time to come yet.

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A Third Of Labour Voters Think Keir Starmer Should Step Down, Poll Finds

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One in three Labour voters say Keir Starmer should step down as prime minister, according to a new poll.

A JL Partners survey, commissioned by the Independent, asked Labour voters if they thought the party had a better chance of winning the next general election if they replaced Starmer – 38% of the 1,562 adults questioned said yes.

A further 39% said getting rid of Starmer would not impact the party’s hopes at the next election, while just 13% said Labour would do worse without the prime minister at the helm and 10% did not offer an opinion.

The poll found that Labour voters have even less faith in Starmer than the general public, as only half of the wider electorate think he should step down.

James Johnson of JL Partners told the Independent: “The results underline the degree to which all voters have lost faith in Keir Starmer. What will worry Downing St most is the belief that Labour would do better under a new leader is strongest among Labour supporters themselves.”

The survey asked which Labour figure voters would like to succeed Starmer.

Manchester mayor and former cabinet minister Andy Burnham came out on top with 19% of Labour voters backing him, even though he is not an MP and therefore not eligible to be party leader.

Former deputy PM Angela Rayner came out in second place with 10% of the vote, while deputy Labour leader Lucy Powell was not far behind on 9%.

Health secretary Wes Streeting and Energy secretary Ed Miliband were both on 6% while home secretary Shabana Mahmood was on 4%.

The education secretary Bridget Phillipson was put on 3% and chief secretary to the PM Darren Jones was on 2%.

The poll also ranked all seven of Labour’s prime ministers in history – and Starmer came out in last place.

The survey comes after the Labour campaign group Labour Together secretly conducted a poll on Starmer’s popularity among its members.

The findings are a real blow to the prime minister, just 18 months on from a landslide victory.

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Trump Official Mocks Starmer’s Chief Of Staff With Bizarre Christmas Post

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An official from the Trump administration appeared to mock the prime minister and his chief of staff after banning two Britons from the US.

Imran Ahmed and Clare Melford, two British-based executives who campaign against disinformation, had their American visas revoked on Christmas Eve.

This was seen as a particular blow to the Labour government due to Ahmed’s links to Keir Starmer’s top team.

Ahmed, a former adviser to cabinet minister Hilary Benn, is chief executive of the Centre for Countering Digital Hate, which was set up in 2017 by Morgan McSweeney, who is now the No.10 chief of staff.

But the US secretary of state Marco Rubio banned Ahmed and Melford for supposedly leading “efforts to coerce American platforms to punish American viewpoints they oppose”.

Then America’s under secretary of state for public diplomacy, Sarah B Rogers, celebrated the move with a slightly less diplomatic move.

She shared a post on X which read, “Hey McSweeney. Merry Christmas”, and featured an edited photo of Rogers with a Christmas hat on.

Rogers added a further festive touch by adding a Christmas tree emoji.

The Trump official said the ban comes as part of a “red line” for the US and the “extraterritorial censorship of Americans”.

Rogers had already taken aim at the UK’s Online Safety Act in interview with GB News at the start of the month, claiming: “To censor Americans in America is a deal breaker.”

When news of the visa ban broke, a UK government spokesperson said: “The UK is fully committed to upholding the right to free speech.

“While every country has the right to set its own visa rules, we support the laws and institutions which are working to keep the Internet free from the most harmful content.

“Social media platforms should not be used to disseminate child sex abuse material, incite hatred and violence, or spread fake information and videos for that purpose.”

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Keir Starmer Calls Out Donald Trump’s ‘Quiet, Piggy’ Insult

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Keir Starmer has just claimed he would “call out” someone for using Donald Trump’s “quiet, piggy” insult.

The prime minister was on ITV’s Loose Women to promote the government’s new scheme to halve violence against women and girls by calling out misogyny when panellist Myleene Klass asked Starmer about the US president’s remarks.

She said: “You know someone very close, one of our closest allies shall we say, recently used the language – ‘quiet, quiet, piggy’. Would you allow for someone to speak to your daughter, your wife, your colleagues in the way that Trump spoke to a female journalist?”

The US president caused an international stir in November when he insulted a female reporter after she asked about his name being mentioned in newly released emails sent by the dead convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

The prime minister replied: “No, I wouldn’t. I absolutely wouldn’t.”

“Would you class it as misogyny, is that something you would be looking at?” Klass asked.

“I would call it out,” he said. “But I would also say, part of the stuff we’re doing with teenagers is talking about behaviours they might not think are problematic but in fact are.”

Klass said: “It’s not just online, they’re learning from the top.”

Starmer has been in a precarious diplomatic situation ever since Trump returned to office at the start of the year.

He has tried to maintain the strong international relationship between the US and the UK while dodging over their ideological differences.

The prime minister has also tried to call out misogyny repeatedly in recent weeks, saying his female cabinet colleagues such as chancellor Rachel Reeves had been victim to it.

Meanwhile, Trump has been accused of ratcheting up his insults towards female reporters in recent weeks, angrily claiming one was “stupid” in November and another is “ugly, inside and out”.

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