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  "path": "/2026/05/11/labour-big-beast-gives-keir-starmer-september-deadline-improve-popularity-28324660/",
  "publishedAt": "2026-05-11T14:46:49.000Z",
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  "textContent": "Kim McGuinness said Sir Keir needs to turn around Labour’s dire polling numbers (Picture: Getty)\n\nOne of Labour’s leading metro mayors has given Keir Starmer a September deadline to turn around the party’s popularity or face being ousted.\n\nKim McGuinness, mayor for the North East, said the Prime Minister needed to improve Labour’s poll ratings by the party conference in late September.\n\nShe also said that fellow mayor Andy Burnham would be a ‘great prime minister’ but refused to say whether she backed his return to Westminster.\n\nThe North East mayor spoke out after devastating local election results in her area, which saw Reform and the Greens make huge gains at Labour’s expense.\n\nKim McGuinness was elected on 41 per cent of the vote in 2024, now the party’s results are dire in the region (Picture: VAUGHAN/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock)\n\nSir Keir vowed to stay in post and fight for working-class people in a do-or-die speech this morning.\n\n##  Want to understand politics better?\n\nMetro's senior politics reporter Craig Munro breaks down political chaos into easy to follow insight, in **Metro** 's politics newsletter Alright, Gov? Sent every Wednesday. Sign up here.\n\nMcGuiness told **Metro** : ‘The Prime Minister needs a chance, but he’s on borrowed time. We need to see this happen urgently.\n\n‘He knows his leadership has come on the doorstep.\n\n‘It’s going to be untenable for Keir to go into another party conference without having demonstrably turned things around in a way that the public can actually feel.’\n\nAsked what would convince her Starmer had changed things, she said: ‘The story is told in the polls every single day.\n\n‘We need to see improvement in public sentiment. That is the only metric for measuring our success.’\n\nShe continued: ‘If we aren’t seeing that improvement [by party conference] then I think the Prime Minister’s decision will be made for him by MPs.’\n\nMcGuinness said potential leadership contender Andy Burnham would make a ‘great prime minister’ (Picture: TOLGA AKMEN/EPA/Shutterstock)\n\nThe Labour Party’s conference is due to take place between September 27 to September 30 2026.\n\nThat gives Sir Keir more than four months to improve the party’s polling position, which the local election results suggested sits at 15 per cent.\n\nMcGuiness added: ‘Voters are never wrong. They vote with their feet and their message is certainly very loud and clear.\n\n‘In my region, it feels very much like this was a national issue as opposed to local issues.’\n\nWhile more than 50 MPs are calling for Sir Keir to set out a timetable for stepping down, but a leadership contender has not emerged.\n\nGreater Manchester mayor Andy Burnham is considered his most dangerous rival but cannot stand until he gets a seat in Parliament.\n\nLabour’s Starmer-friendly national executive committee blocked Burnham from becoming a candidate in the February Gorton and Denton by-election.\n\nThat decision has now been attacked by ex-deputy PM Angela Rayner, in a major boost for his chances of taking the top job.\n\nThe PM said he won’t walk away (Picture: James Manning/PA Wire)\n\nMcGuinness also heaped praise on her fellow mayor, saying: ‘Andy would be a great prime minister and a great leader. He’s been a fantastic mayor. He’s really led the way on devolution.’\n\nHowever she stressed that he was not an MP, and would not be drawn on whether she supported his return to Parliament while there was not a live by-election or leadership election on the cards.\n\nIn the local elections in the north east, Labour went down to five councillors in Sunderland, two in Newcastle and just one in South Tyneside.\n\nThe metro mayor said that the current Labour government in Westminster had to take direct action ‘urgently’ to persuade voters to return to the party.\n\nAmong the things she wants to happen is ‘more devolution and faster’\n\nShe explained: ‘We need to see is some real tangible things that tackle the cost of living in a way that people can recognize.’\n\nShe cited her policies of capping bus and Metro fares in the region as central to helping locals with the cost of living.\n\nSir Keir warned in a speech this morning that replacing him as Prime Minister would plunge the country into chaos as he battled to save his job.\n\nTo view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tvideo\n\nUp Next\n\nPrevious Page\n\nNext Page\n\nHe vowed: ‘I take responsibility for not walking away, not plunging our country into chaos, as the Tories did time and again. Chaos that did lasting damage to this country.’\n\nAs he pledged rapid change to improve the party’s position, he committed to closer relations with Brussels, saying he would put Britain ‘at the heart of Europe’.\n\nThe Prime Minister also announced that the government would take ‘full national ownership’ of struggling British Steel, which received raucous applause from party followers.\n\nSir Keir’s speech has now slowed the trickle of Labour backbenchers turning on him.\n\nModerate backbencher David Smith said immediately after the address that he wanted the Prime Minister to lay out a timetable for leaving office.\n\n******Get in touch with our news team by emailing us atwebnews@metro.co.uk.******\n\n**For more stories like this,** check our news page.\n\nComment now Comments \nAdd Metro as a Preferred Source on Google\nAdd as preferred source\n",
  "title": "Labour big beast gives Keir Starmer September deadline to improve popularity"
}