Sir Keir Starmer has warned Labour staff to be ready for the collapse of Liz Truss’s government and a general election “at any time”.
Announcing a shake-up of his top team, Sir Keir said the Tory poll collapse which followed the disastrous mini-Budget and market turmoil gave Labour “a huge chance”.
He told Labour Party staff on Tuesday: “The government’s collapse has given us a huge chance. The instability means they could fall at any time. Because of that we need to get on an election footing straight away.”
Sir Keir has restructured key roles in his bid to put Labour on “election footing”, which will see policy and communications roles move to Labour HQ, reporting to general secretary David Evans.
The leader’s chief of staff Sam White will leave as part of the merger of roles from Sir Keir’s office and party headquarters. “We’ve been planning this for a while but the scale of the Tory collapse has brought it forward,” said Sir Keir.
In a call with Labour staff Sir Keir said it was “not a time for complacency or caution”, urging his party to “seize the opportunity we have and show the British people we are the party that can lead our country forward”.
It comes as left-wing Labour MP Sam Tarry demanded to see details of the vote that led to him being deselected in his constituency on Monday night. The former frontbencher said he was “utterly crestfallen” at the result.
Mr Tarry, who is in a relationship with Labour’s deputy leader Angela Rayner, said the contest had been a “manufactured political circus” and he wanted further information to be “assured of the integrity of the result”.
The left-winger, who was sacked as a shadow transport minister after giving interviews from a picket line, failed to see off the challenge from the leader of Redbridge council, Jas Athwal.
“I am extremely concerned about the result, which does not reflect the feeling my campaigners met on the ground talking day in day out to members,” he said after the vote held when his local constituency branches opted to trigger reselection proceedings.
Mr Tarry added: “In order to be assured of the integrity of the result I am asking the party to share with me the full information of who cast electronic votes, by what method, and when they were cast.”
Wes Streeting, the party’s shadow health secretary and MP for Ilford North, was among the first to offer congratulations to Mr Athwal – praising his “resounding victory”.
Meanwhile, chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng is set to answer questions from MPs about his fiscal plans in the Common today, with Treasury questions pencilled in for Tuesday afternoon.
Labour is calling on the chancellor to reverse course on the “kamikaze” tax-cutting mini-Budget. “It will be up to Labour to clean up the mess of the Conservatives once again,” said shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves.
It comes as the Bank of England has said it will further expand its emergency bond-buying scheme, as it warned that an ongoing rout on government debt poses a risk to financial stability.
Shadow Treasury minister Pat McFadden said news that the Bank of England “has been forced to step in for a second day running to reassure markets shows the government’s approach is not working”.
