Bell Ribeiro-Addy calls for Starmer departure timetable, Steve Reed urges party unity – Lambeth’s Labour MPs draw their dividing lines

Clapham & Brixton Hill MP Bell Ribeiro-Addy and Streatham’s Steve Reed have come out swinging in opposite corners as Labour figures across the party take sides over Keir Starmer’s leadership after last week’s local election rout.

Posting on social media in the wake of Saturday’s election count at the Oval cricket ground, Ribeiro-Addy was scathing:

“These results are a disaster for our party on both a local and national level.

The government’s current strategy is holding the door open for a Reform government and electoral oblivion in Labour heartlands up and down the country.

Change cannot come soon enough.”

– Bell Ribeiro-Addy MP for Clapham & Brixton Hill.

Her comments came as part of a weekend of intense media speculation and public interventions from Labour figures across the party on the question of the Prime Minister’s continued tenure.

Yesterday Starmer addressed members in Waterloo, taking responsibility for the defeat but vowing to “prove the doubters wrong” – a speech critics rounded on as soundbite-heavy and short on substantive ideological movement.

Notably absent from the speech was any acknowledgement that his stance on Gaza and Israel has seen Labour’s youth vote evaporate.

Following the Prime Minister’s speech, Ribeiro-Addy was quick to respond on Facebook:

“It is clear the PM does not have a credible plan. He must now set out a timetable for departure.

But the process to replace him cannot be a coronation. Our next leader must be chosen in a real democratic contest.

Otherwise we risk ending up right back where we started.”

Ribeiro-Addy’s call for a “real democratic contest” carries the imprint of last autumn’s deputy leadership contest, when she was [the first declared candidate], positioning herself as a voice for the party’s membership and its left.

Streatham and Croydon North MP and Housing Secretary Steve Reed has taken the opposite line.

A Starmer loyalist of long standing, Reed told Sky News:

“We saw what the Tories did.

They were in power for 14 years, and after 2016, I think we had nine education secretaries, seven chancellors, and five Prime Ministers.”

– Steve Reed MP – Streatham and Croydon North, and Housing Secretary.

In an earlier intervention with HuffPost UK, Reed warned MPs against “falling inwards on each other” and said voters would “never forgive” a leadership battle.

The borough’s two other Labour MPs have so far been quieter.

Dulwich and West Norwood MP Helen Hayes told BBC Radio 4 last September that bad results in May would mean “questions about the nature of the leadership” – questions she has not yet asked publicly since Thursday.

Vauxhall and Camberwell Green MP Florence Eshalomi, who nominated Starmer for the Labour leadership in 2020, has made no public comment.