Miatta Fahnbulleh became the first minister to resign from Keir Starmer’s government on Tuesday, breaking with the prime minister as pressure mounted over Labour’s election losses. In her resignation, Fahnbulleh called on Starmer to quit and said she would urge him to do the right thing for the country and the party by setting a timetable for an orderly transition.
She said the message on the doorsteps at local elections was that the prime minister had lost the trust and the confidence of the public. Her departure came as more than 70 Labour MPs publicly called for Starmer to stand down after dire election results across England, Wales and Scotland last week.
The resignation landed just hours before the cabinet was due to meet later on Tuesday morning, adding to the strain inside a government already forced into damage control. Fahnbulleh is close to the energy secretary, Ed Miliband, which gives her move added weight at a moment when the leadership is under open challenge from within its own ranks.
The pressure now sits with Starmer, who still has over 400 Labour MPs behind him in the parliamentary party but faces a widening revolt from colleagues unhappy with the direction of travel. On Monday, four senior cabinet ministers were among those who spoke to him, and Darren Jones said the prime minister was listening to colleagues who were asking him to set out a timetable for departure.
Jones also said he was not going to get ahead of any decision that the prime minister may or may not take, but added that Starmer was very clear yesterday that he will not be walking away. He described the negotiations around the leadership as gruelling, and said the only way through was a responsible, dignified, orderly one.
For now, the immediate test is whether the government can hold together through the cabinet meeting on Tuesday and reach the king’s speech on Wednesday without further resignations or a sharper split in the party. Fahnbulleh’s exit is not just a protest; it is the first break in the wall, and it shows how far the fallout from last week’s results has already gone.
