The Duran Podcast - Starmer Exit and the By-Election That Could End the Labour Party

Episode Date: May 18, 2026

Starmer Exit and the By-Election That Could End the Labour Party

All right, Alexander, let's talk about what is happening in the UK, an interesting Daily Mail exclusive, where they claim that Stammer is going to resign in mid-June, but he wants to do it his way. He wants to leave with dignity. We have two candidates who have emerged as frontrunners, Streeting and Andy Burnham. And I believe Rainer is kind of waiting in the wings, but the, but the, Labor Party does not look good. It looks very, very bad for labor. What's happening?

Well, I would put it more strongly than that. I think that the Labor Party is now, I mean, it's in an incredibly perilous condition. And it's not impossible that within a few weeks, its position will become completely terminal. Now, before I start on that, and it's interesting and it's important. But let me just talk a little bit about Starma, because of course, Starma has been clinging on. There were the disastrous local election results, which we discussed in a recent program. Reform won a sweeping victory. We've had more results come through.

And we've got the full sense of the cataclysmic collapse of labor right across England, Wales, Scotland. even in London they're falling back. Reform were the big winners. The Greens came second. Labour did incredibly badly. It was obvious once the full results started to come through that Stama was finished. And from that moment on,

we've had a whole series of political manoeuvres to try to replace him. And he's gone apparently to checkers. Checkers is a country house. It belongs to the British government. It is actually the official residence of the British Prime Minister. Many people think the official residence is 10 Downing Street. It is not. Ten Downing Street is where he works and he has a flat. But Chequers is the Prime Minister's private house. It's a beautiful 16th century house in the country. And apparently Starmat is there. He has finally come to realize, and there's lots of reports about this across the media today.

I mean, there was that daily mail article, which is the exclusive, but now it's been confirmed by all sorts of other reports. He's now finally accepted that it's over, that he cannot remain Prime Minister, that the results in the elections were devastating, that he is not just unpopular, and disliked, but it's even more extreme than that. I've been getting information about the kind of things people have been saying about him on the doorstep when, you know, people from the parties come knock on the doors and if it's from Labour, I mean, they get a stream of abuse from people. These are voters telling them what they think about Kirstama. So he's finally understood this.

But what is extraordinary about Stama, what is extraordinary about this, is that apparently he's still saying that he is the person who should have been left to get it all together, that he's been betrayed by everyone around him. This is the man who has betrayed everybody, who's thrown people repeatedly under the bus, who pretended that he was Jeremy Corby. friend and then threw him out of the Labour Party as soon as he became leader himself. So, but he still clings to this narrative that he's the great hero who's been misunderstood

and who has been betrayed, which again tells you what a completely inappropriate man he is to lead Labour and to be Prime Minister and to govern Britain and to think of a way forward. But what Stama has achieved and what Labor has done over the last 10 days, in my opinion, takes what was already a critical situation for the Labour Party and makes it potentially terminal. And when I say terminal, terminal potentially within the next few weeks, because there were an awful lot of manoeuvres over the last 10 days about who would take over from Stama. And the initial challenge came from West Streeting, who we've discussed many times, the Blair Wright candidate. He was the person who clearly doesn't like Stama, who obviously believes that he should be

Prime Minister in Stama's place. He was the person who ultimately made the blow that made it impossible for Stama to remain. And he's a candidate in this election to replace Stama. But the overwhelming consensus, which I do not share, by the way, but the overwhelming consensus within the Labour Party itself, is that streeting is not able to save the party and to be an effective Prime Minister. They've all decided, they've all told themselves, the Labour Party leadership, have all told themselves

that the only person who can save the situation is the Mayor of Manchester, a man called Andy Burnham. he has to be elected to the House of Commons in order to be able to mount a challenge to Stama to become Prime Minister if he wins a leadership election. So in order to make it possible for that to happen, they've had to arrange a parliamentary by-election. They have managed to do that now, but it is in a area in Manchester where reform did particularly well in the local elections. And this potentially creates a crisis. The word that I've heard is that Burnham is polling roughly equal with a reform candidate.

in this area at the present time. If Burnham wins and is elected to Parliament, well, then things become straightforward. At that point, Starmer almost certainly steps down. It is unlikely that there will be a leadership election. Burnham almost automatically becomes Labour leader and becomes Prime Minister. but if Burnham loses and cannot get into Parliament, a number of important things. Firstly, the whole point about Burnham is that he's supposed to be the one Labour politician

who can take on and defeat reform. That's the reason that they set up this incredibly complicated process. If Burnham cannot do that, then the big question mark is, can anyone else? So they would not have a straightforward transition to a new prime minister. And whoever then does take over from Stama, you mentioned streeting, you mentioned Angela Rainer, they would all come with a massive disadvantage that they are not the first choice of the Labour Party. and they are not seen as being able to take on reform. At that point, if Burnham loses, the view will start to take hold

that no one in the Labour Party can win against reform in any part of Britain. And we will at that moment have a ten-one have a tailspin situation with the Labor Party crashing to not just an inevitable defeat, but perhaps finding itself in a terminal position. Just call elections. Right. I mean, just call elections. It's, it sounds so so straightforward.

It's so obvious. They're clinging on to power. It's pretty pathetic. It's pretty sad and pathetic. That's the way I'm looking. As an outsider, as an outsider looking in, if he loses to reform, labor screwed. That West Street and guy does not, I mean, he's like a worse version than Stommer, if that's even possible. Yes.

And Angela Rainer, I don't know. I can't say anything about her. I don't know anything about her. I've seen her speak a couple of times. But why not just call elections? Why do the other parties not tell Labor you have to call elections? How come the king just doesn't say, look, our country is in meltdown mode? It's in meltdown mode.

You need to just call elections in June, in July, whatever. I mean, is this impossible? I don't know. You tell me. Oh, it's entirely possible. I mean, in fact, it's very straightforward. Stama or whoever is the prime minister comes to the king and says, I want to call elections. And elections are called.

It's very easy. The problem is that the Labour Party doesn't want to do that because they know if they called elections tomorrow, there would be a meltdown. I mean, we would go from a situation where they halved their votes, and that's if they're lucky. And they would be reduced to a small ramp, a small group of MPs. And that would begin to look like the end of the Labour Party. What they're trying to do, why they're not calling elections, why they are trying to replace Stama with Burnham, is because they think that is the route to survival. Not perhaps a route to retaining power in an election, but to survival as a party and as a political force in British life. If Bernard cannot win, then the perception, it cannot win this by-election, then the perception

will develop that the party has essentially been killed. There is no one who can lead it not to victory, but even to survival. And then we get a crisis like we've never seen, because there's still the government. There's the big question then, can they killing on? Shouldn't they cling on? I mean, it would be a zombie party running a government, which, of course, it wouldn't be running the government. We would be in a crisis like we've never seen.

But the anger against the Labour Party in places like, well, Manchester, is now so great that I can absolutely see how voters in this area might decide that this is their chance to kill the Labour Party by voting against Burnham. And there is a real possibility that that might happen. Now, you know, here they're going to pull out every stop. They're going to pull every lever. They're going to do everything they possibly can to win in this place.

But if they don't, if Burnham loses, then, as I said, we have a crisis for the Labour Party, but it is also a crisis for the country because the country then essentially is without a government with no certainty that we will get this thing resolved for the next three years, because this parliament was elected two years ago and under the British Constitution, it's got three years to run. But party over country. Party over country, but not just party over country, but private careers, personal careers, over country, too. And all of this in the middle of an escalating bond crisis, because the situation with British bonds is deteriorating. And also, beyond that, too, a crisis in the energy markets about which nobody is doing anything, because it's important to say,

we have actually no government in Britain at this time because we now have all of these reports that Stama realizes that it's over for him. He is prime minister in name only if he comes to cabinet, to the government, to the other ministers and says, I want to do this and it's controversial and they don't like it, it can't happen. and without a strong functioning prime minister who is actively in charge, everything, everything in government stops.

And that's already the situation we are in. If Burnham loses the by-election, then that could be prolonged for three years. If Burnham wins, it may even be worse. Right? I mean, it may even be worse to have Labor in for another thing. three years. I mean, they've they've effed up conservatives and labor. They've mismanaged the government, the country in a catastrophic, in an unbelievable way when you think about it. It's unbelievable the amount of damage that they have done, both parties. You know, you did a terrible job.

You did a catastrophic job. It's time for you to go. That's the way life works. If this was a company? Yeah, the entire executive team would be sacked, the entire board of directors gone. But, you know, that is why you, I mean, when you think about it, that is why you have a board of directors or an executive of the board so that they can look at the executive team and get rid of them. So, I mean, the king, the king seems pretty useless to be. Right? But in this, But in this one instance, he can make himself useful, very critical, because he would be the one that could say, I mean, can he not say, I don't need the prime minister to come to me? I need to save the country now because the country's just collapsing. It's not governable.

I need to do something. So I need to call elections without having Stammer come to me. You see, I'll tell you what the problem with all of that is. First of all, the king himself would never do that. because it will be a breach in effect of the ideas that now have developed around the British Constitution. The last time a king did that was George III in the 18th century. I mean, we're talking about a very, very long time ago. But there is something that people outside Britain need to understand,

which is that the way the political class speaks, the way the commentary at in the media speaks, the way the people who prop them up speak, the prospect of a government led by reform, and in the situation that you are outlining, the only plausible result would be a reform government of some kind, probably perhaps in coalition with the conservatives. But anyway, a government led by reform with Nigel Farage's prime minister. The way that has been presented is that if it happens, it's like Attila the Hun capturing Rome. I mean, it is that kind of, it's seen as a catastrophic scenario. one of the speeches, the speech that Stama made about a week ago, he's so-called reset speech.

He spoke about the dangerous opponents that the Labour Party has. And again, he's obviously talking about reform and about Nigel Farage. Now, I personally find this, well, I mean, I find this absurd of this kind of way of talking. but the narrative which has taken hold and which is believed here by lots of people is that however bad the situation is, having a reform government is even worse. When I say lots of people, I mean lots of people amongst the sort of 10, 15% of the population that still supports the current system. And obviously within the globalist elite, which basically runs things. By the way, there is an analysis that's been circulating in Britain,

and which I know has been read by quite a few people, even though it's not been published, which actually, I think, puts the finger on the whole problem. And it says that the reason we have a political crisis in Britain is that before we used to have a conservative party, which represented middle-class, people and the business community and a Labour Party which now, which used to represent workers and organised labour. Whereas what we have now are a Conservative and Labour Party, which basically

represent the interests, both of which represent the interests of a globalist elite. That's the actual phrase that's used in this article, a globalist elite, which is detested by the British people. Now, we of course have insane variations of this for the last years of 10 years, but as I said, it's suddenly starting to dawn even within the political class itself, that this is how the people of Britain feel about them. Isn't Farage going to be the same? I mean, Maybe there are differences. Once again, you know better than I do. There seems to be some differences between reform and the establishment parties.

But it does seem that over the past couple of years, Farage and Reform have moved more towards the establishment in big ways, at least with foreign policy, it seems that they're perfectly aligned with the globalist elite. Maybe the question of the EU freaks them out. Maybe the fact that labor is pushing so hard to get back into the EU and Farage campaigned to get out of the EU, maybe that's what unnerves them about reform. But everything else seems to be pretty lined up with the establishment party, the EU, immigration. I think those seem to be the two issues that differentiate reform from labor, the conservatives. Tell me if that's correct. You're absolutely correct. But of course, saying that already highlights for the elite the problem,

because you're absolutely correct. They are committed ultimately to taking Britain back into the EU. And they have their own ideas about immigration, which are completely different from those that Farage and reform are promoting. But their problem, is that most people in Britain agree with reform, or at least a critical mass of people, agree with reform on both of these questions. Let me go back to that by-election, which has been called to enable Burnham to get elected to the House of Commons so that he can become Prime Minister. Burnham himself has a long record and a recent record of advocating for Britain to rejoin the EU.

I mean, this has been his well-established policy, which is identical to that, by the way, of all of the other leading people within the Labour Party. I mean, it's true of Rainer. It's true of streeting. Streeting is even more vocal about this. It's true, Stahma himself, as we all know. The problem is this area where Burnham wants to, has to win in order to get back into the House of Commons. In 2016, in the Brexit referendum, voted overwhelmingly for leave, for leaving the EU. And the people there still support Brexit. They're still strongly opposed to any move to take Britain back into the EU. So over the last few hours, there's been a sort of kerfuffle because Burnham's various

pro-EU comments have floated back. And this has sparked already a minor crisis within the Labour party and he's had to walk them back even though ultimately others and we all know that those are his convictions but this is one of the things if he stands in this constituency he comes to it as a pro-EU candidate in a strongly anti-EU area he has views about immigration which are again very different from those of the people in this particular area. And yes, I agree in practically all respects, other respects, on economic policy, on foreign policy, on defence policy, reform has now aligned with the elite.

But it's not enough for the elite. The things that it's holding out on are too, you know, toxic for them to touch. At the same time, these positions that reform has are what make it popular and what are making it look increasingly like the only party that can win an election and form a government. Yeah. All right. Yeah. We always say it to that the globalist elite, this religion, this ideology demands 100% commitment that compliance, 100%, not 99. 98, so the fact that reform does diverge from some of the positions of the globalist elite, two big positions, the EU and immigration.

Yeah, that's going to create problems for the globalist elite. I mean, I would add they don't trust reform on Ukraine either, which is another major issue. I mean, Farage wrote articles in which he said that he didn't think the war in Ukraine was unprecedented. which is already absolute heresy as far as the elit is concerned. He walked all that back, but they've never forgotten that he said it. I mean, that's the trouble. How dare you say that it gets... How dare you say that?

Exactly. The avatar of globalism, right? The representative of globalism is a led-ske. Exactly. Exactly. But we should not overlook the sort of critical nature of what's taking place. Burnham loses this election. It is the end of the Labour Party.

I mean, Stama would still be Prime Minister, even though everybody accepts that he's a broken, disastrous leader, and that his remaining Prime Minister has become impossible and unsustainable. But the alternatives are alternatives. which Labor, over the last week, has essentially already rejected. And the reason they rejected these alternatives, Rainer and Streeting,

is because of the view that these two people cannot win against reform. If Burnham cannot win against reform, the logic says no one can. And that really is the moment, as I said, when the Labour Party goes into, a tailspin and its own situation becomes terminal. And I'm not overstating things. There's an extraordinary article in the Financial Times, which was written by a man called David Blunkett, who was one of Tony Blair's ministers.

And he makes exactly that point, that this is for labour now, an incredibly high-stakes situation. By gambling on Burnham, they've done two things. They've ensured that for several weeks, at least months probably, Britain has no government because everybody's waiting for Burnham to be elected, and until he's elected, Stama remains in place, and Stama has no authority. So already that is debilitating.

But if Burnham loses the credibility of labor is lost and it has no route back. Yeah. All right. Well, they did it to themselves. Absolutely. Dare to blame fully. Less Ukraine. They should have focused less on Ukraine and should have focused more on the country.

Well, you know, this is it. Easy stuff. You know what you say? You invented, well, you didn't. You came up with this concept of the Olensky curse. Stama, obviously, he's a victim of it. He's another person who's going down. But you could argue that the entire Labor Party is a strong curse.

It's a very strong curse. All right. We will add to the video there at the derad.locals.com. We are on X and Rumble and Telegram. We are also on substack. So check us out there and go to DRAD shop. Pick up some merch. The link is a description box down below.

Take care.