Keir Starmer leaves 10 Downing Street.A Labour MP has declared “people don’t like” Keir Starmer as the party slumped to fourth place in a new opinion poll.
Sarah Champion delivered the damning verdict as the prime minister fights for his political life over the latest revelations about Peter Mandelson’s appointment as the UK’s ambassador to Washington.
It emerged last week that Starmer was not told by Foreign Office civil servants that Mandelson had failed security vetting to take up the post.
In the Commons on Monday, the prime minister said that “beggars belief”, but also admitted he had been wrong to appoint Mandelson in the first place.
The shamed former Labour peer was sacked from his post after six months over his links to convicted paedophile Jeffrey Epstein.
On Radio 4′s Today programme, Champion, the MP for Rotherham, admitted voters had turned on the PM.
“I’ll be honest with you, people don’t like Keir on the door,” she said. “But it’s not about this Mandelson thing, they don’t like him personally.”
Her comments came as a new YouGov poll put Labour in fourth place behind Reform, the Tories and the Green Party.
Support for Reform has risen by three points in the past week to 27%, with the Conservatives and Greens on 17% and Labour on 16%.
The findings are a fresh blow for the PM as Labour braces for a terrible set of elections in England, Scotland and Wales on May 7.
On Sky News, energy secretary Ed Miliband rejected suggestions that Starmer should lose his job over the Mandelson affair.
He said: “I don’t know think so, no. Prime ministers make errors. Prime ministers are fallible. Prime ministers are human.
“I steered well clear of Peter Mandelson when I became the leader in 2010, but people make mistakes.”
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