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Energy Secretary Ed Miliband has told his Cabinet colleagues to “just move on” and “focus on the country” in the wake of a failed attempt to remove Sir Keir Starmer from Downing Street.
Miliband’s comments on Tuesday came after allies of the embattled prime minister claimed that calls by Scottish Labor leader Anas Sarwar for Starmer to resign were co-ordinated with Health Secretary Wes Streeting.
Asked about the claim and Streeting’s rebuttal, the Energy Secretary said: “Move on Dot Org. I mean, let’s just move on. Let’s move on from all this.
“I’m saying to my colleagues – don’t focus on yourself, focus on the country. That was Keir’s message last night and he’s absolutely right,” the former Labor leader told Sky News.
Starmer, who takes office in July 2024, rallied MPs at a raucous meeting of the parliamentary Labor Party on Monday evening.
“After fighting so hard for the opportunity to transform our country, I am not willing to step back from my mandate and my responsibility to our country,” he said at the meeting.
In separate comments to the BBC, Miliband acknowledged that Starmer faced a “moment of crisis” on Monday.
He urged the Prime Minister to embrace the “moment of change” following the scandal over Lord Peter Mandelson’s relationship with Jeffrey Epstein and show greater clarity of purpose and focus on voters.
Miliband said, “For 20 years, this country has been run for the rich and powerful, not ordinary working people. And the manifestation of that is the long-term cost of living crisis. We exist to change that.”
Starmer has taken steps in recent days to contain the fallout from the Mandelson scandal, with Morgan McSweeney stepping down as her chief of staff on Sunday and Tim Allen stepping down as No. 10 director of communications on Monday morning.
The Prime Minister is also set to replace Sir Chris Wormald as Cabinet Secretary and Britain’s top civil servant. Wormald was appointed to the role in December but his approach has since been criticized by government figures.
McSweeney, who is widely regarded as the architect of Labour’s landslide 2024 election victory, said in her resignation statement that she took full responsibility for advising Starmer to appoint Mandelson as UK ambassador to the US, despite the peer’s known ties to sex offender Epstein. Mandelson was dismissed from his post in September last year.
The Metropolitan Police are now investigating financial payments made by Epstein to Mandelson and the leaking of sensitive government information to the financier while he was business secretary and de facto deputy prime minister in 2009 and 2010.
The Met published its own correspondence with Mandelson on Tuesday to warn ministers not to follow Streeting’s lead.
Streeting on Monday released dozens of text messages he had exchanged with Mandelson, saying he had “nothing to hide”.
It comes as government ministers and advisers are preparing to hand over WhatsApp messages, text and email exchanges with Mandelson relating to his appointment as UK ambassador to Washington to the cross-party Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC), which will decide whether to release them.
In a statement on Tuesday, the Met – which said last week it was investigating Mandelson for possible misconduct in public office – said: “It is important that proper procedure is followed so that our criminal investigation and any potential prosecution is not compromised.”
The force said it would review material provided to it by the Cabinet Office to assess whether publication was likely to have a “detrimental effect” on its investigation or subsequent prosecution.
As Labor braces itself for poor results in May elections in Scotland, Wales and parts of England, Starmer faces calls from the left of his party to try to win back voters wooed by the Greens and Liberal Democrats rather than compete with the right-wing Reform UK.
Starmer has described the next general election, which must be held by the summer of 2029, as a battle between Labor and Reform for the “soul of the country”. McSweeney was one of the leading figures in Downing Street arguing against a shift to the left.
Wales’ First Labor Minister Alunrud Morgan endorsed Starmer on Tuesday, saying: “I support the Prime Minister in doing the job he was elected to do. After years of rotating leadership under the Conservatives, the country needs stability in an era of instability, and that matters for Wales.”
But Miliband criticized Number 10 for giving the US envoy role to Mandelson, who was twice sacked from government roles under Sir Tony Blair due to scandals involving wealthy people.
“I want to be absolutely clear: Peter Mandelson should never have been appointed to this position,” Miliband said. “We are a government whose central purpose, I believe, is to stand up for the powerless, not the powerful, and this weakens it.”
