'It's An Utter Mess': Keir Starmer On The Rack As He Faces Make-Or-Break 2026 |
Keir Starmer faces a make-or-break 2026.
In his New Year message to voters, Keir Starmer said: “By staying the course, we will defeat the decline and division offered by others.”
As his leadership rivals circle, the prime minister may well have been addressing his fractious MPs as much as the country at large.
Be in no doubt that the mood among the Parliamentary Labour Party is grim, with their anger being directed at what they see as a misfiring No.10 operation.
This week’s row over the release of Alaa Abd El-Fattah merely served to confirm what Starmer’s critics already believed, that there is no political problem that the PM and those around him cannot make worse.
Following the British-Egyptian pro-democracy activist’s release from jail, the prime minister posted on X: “I’m delighted that Alaa Abd El-Fattah is back in the UK and has been reunited with his loved ones, who must be feeling profound relief.
“I want to pay tribute to Alaa’s family, and to all those that have worked and campaigned for this moment. Alaa’s case has been a top priority for my government since we came to office. I’m grateful to President Sisi for his decision to grant the pardon.”
However, historic anti-semitic and racist tweets by El-Fattah soon emerged, plunging the government into a fresh crisis as both the Tories and Reform UK demanded his British citizenship be revoked.
It took fully 72 hours for Starmer to eventually break his silence, and only after foreign secretary Yvette Cooper had announced an inquiry into how the civil service managed to miss El-Fattah’s deeply offensive posts.
The PM said: “The historic tweets by Alaa Abd El-Fattah are absolutely abhorrent. With the rise of anti-semitism, and........