Keir Starmer has suffered another major setback as GB News came to a halt for a breaking update. Martin Daubney revealed that leaked audio features the UK’s ambassador to the US, Chris Turner, appearing to predict that if Labour do badly in the May elections, Starmer could be ousted as prime minister.
He told viewers: “Has the prime minister got yet another headache caused by yet another US ambassador because brace yourself for this, Sir Keir Starmer, audio from the US ambassador, Chris Turner, has been leaked and he predicts that the prime minister is in trouble!” In the audio clip, Turner can be heard saying: “To get to a threshold where you remove a prime minister for the Labour Party, according to Labour Party rules, as I’m sure you know, is really quite hard.
“80 MPs have to sign a letter in public, which is like signing your death warrant. It’s much harder than for the Tories.”
He continued: “So I think that is still quite difficult and Keir personally is a stubborn guy. He’s never lost a fight he’s in. And so I think Keir saying, ‘I’m quitting’ is quite a high bar.
Turner added: “If they do okay, he might carry on going. For me, that’s just me as a citizen, speculating ’cause I have to serve whomever, whomever is there.”
A stunned Daubney declared: “Just to be clear, this is Christian Turner, the UK’s ambassador to the United States, the bloke who got Mandelson’s job after Mandelson got the chop, has been banging on to a group of American students, one of whom recorded it, predicting that Keir Starmer, and I quote ‘If Labour does very badly in the May elections, I suspect the party will be able to go over that threshold and remove him.’
“He’s talking about his boss – the prime minister – being kicked out after a set of elections! That is not ambassadorial behaviour.”
Reacting to the breaking news, Sir Michael Ellis said: “It does seem here that he’s rather put his foot in it because he’s been indiscreet talking to some students, one of whom appears to have recorded his remarks, and it’s found its way to The Financial Times!”
Daubney highlighted that Turner’s remarks have come out at the same time the prime minister is facing a vote by MPs on whether the Privileges Committee should consider if he misled the Commons over the vetting of Mandelson.
GB News’s Senior Political Commentator Nigel Nelson added: “I’m gobsmacked! I do think he started off by just explaining to those students the process for removing a Labour prime minister. To actually say it might happen is going way beyond what he should be doing.”
