• More than 60 Labour MPs reportedly call on UK PM to step down.
• Four govt aides resign amid growing pressure on Starmer leadership.
• PM vows to “prove doubters wrong” after disastrous local election losses.

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer has been told by UK Interior Minister Shabana Mahmood, UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy, and a myriad of other senior cabinet ministers to consider setting out a timeline for his departure, The Times newspaper reported on Monday.

The statement comes as pressure continues to mount on Starmer following disastrous local and regional election results for the ruling Labour Party.

The report came as Starmer vowed to prove his doubters wrong and resist growing calls to step down after Labour suffered heavy losses in local and regional elections.

More than 60 of Labour’s 403 MPs reportedly asked him to quit, unconvinced by his pledge to make the party “bolder and better” in response to voter frustration over the pace of change.

The rebels included four government aides who resigned from their posts.

Joe Morris, who served as parliamentary private secretary to Health Secretary Wes Streeting, wrote on X that it was “now clear that the prime minister no longer has the trust or confidence of the public to lead this change”.

Another aide, Tom Rutland, who worked for Environment Secretary Emma Reynolds, said Starmer had “lost authority” among Labour MPs and “will not be able to regain it”.

Melanie Ward, an assistant to Deputy Prime Minister David Lammy, also called for a leadership change.

“Keir Starmer did important work to change the Labour Party, and governing in a time like this will never be easy,” she wrote on X.

“But the message from last week’s elections was clear; the Prime Minister has lost the confidence of the public to lead this change.”

Cabinet Office aide Naushabah Khan, who also resigned, said: “I am calling for new leadership so that we can rebuild trust and deliver the better future that the British people voted for.”

Under Labour Party rules, any challenger would need the backing of 81 MPs — 20% of the parliamentary party — to trigger a leadership contest.

Such a move, however, could open a damaging internal struggle between Labour’s left and right factions over a successor.

Starmer, 63, came to power in July 2024 after a landslide election victory ended 14 years of Conservative rule marked by austerity, Brexit infighting and criticism over the government’s Covid response.

But his premiership has been dogged by policy missteps and controversy, including fallout over the appointment and later dismissal of Peter Mandelson as UK ambassador to Washington after reports linked him to disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein.

While Starmer has struggled to revive economic growth and ease cost-of-living pressures, he has drawn praise for resisting US President Donald Trump over Iran.

Labour’s poor showing in last week’s elections saw major gains for the hard-right Reform UK and the left-wing Greens at Labour’s expense.

The party also lost control of the devolved Welsh parliament to Plaid Cymru for the first time since its establishment in 1999 and failed to recover ground against the Scottish National Party in Scotland.

In a major speech on Monday, Starmer acknowledged public frustration with politics, the state of the country and his own leadership.

“I know I have my doubters, and I know I need to prove them wrong, and I will,” he said.

He promised “a bigger response” rather than “incremental change” on issues including economic growth, closer European ties and energy policy.

Starmer also pledged to fully nationalise British Steel and said Brexit had left Britain “poorer, weaker and less secure”.

He attacked Reform UK leader Nigel Farage as a “chancer” and “grifter” whose pro-Brexit campaign had taken Britain “for a ride”.

“If we don’t get this right our country will go down a very dark path,” he warned.

After the speech, Labour MP Catherine West, who had earlier threatened to trigger a leadership challenge, said she was instead gathering names of MPs who wanted Starmer to announce a timetable for electing a new leader in September.

Starmer vowed to fight any challenge and warned Labour would “never be forgiven” if it repeated the “chaos” of recent Conservative governments, which saw five prime ministers since 2010, including three in four months during 2022.

Health Secretary Streeting and former deputy prime minister Angela Rayner have long been seen as possible challengers, though neither commands universal support inside Labour.

Rayner, while stopping short of demanding Starmer’s resignation, said in a speech on Monday: “What we are doing isn’t working, and it needs to change.”

• Trump dismisses Tehran’s proposal as “stupid”.
• Says he didn’t even finish reading Iran’s response.
• Iran willing to give US “the nuclear dust”: Trump.
  

US President Donald Trump on Monday said that a ceasefire with Iran was “on life support” after he rejected Tehran’s response to a US peace proposal, fuelling concerns of a resumption of hostilities in the 10-week-old conflict that has killed thousands and halted vital energy flows.

Days after Washington floated a proposal aimed at reopening negotiations, Iran on Sunday released a response focused on ending the war on all fronts, including Lebanon, where US ally Israel is fighting Iran-backed Hezbollah.

The response had been swiftly rejected by Trump.

Asked where the Pakistan-brokered ceasefire stands, Trump told reporters: “I would call it the weakest right now, after reading that piece of garbage they sent us. I didn’t even finish reading it.”

In its response, Tehran also demanded compensation for war damage, emphasised its sovereignty over the Strait of Hormuz, and called on the US to end its naval blockade, guarantee no further attacks, lift sanctions and remove a ban on Iranian oil sales.

The US had proposed an end to fighting before starting talks on more contentious issues, including Iran’s nuclear programme.

Tehran defended its stance on Monday.

“Our demand is legitimate: demanding an end to the war, lifting the (US) blockade and piracy, and releasing Iranian assets that have been unjustly frozen in banks due to US pressure,” Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei said.

“Safe passage through the Strait of Hormuz and establishing security in the region and Lebanon were other demands of Iran, which are considered a generous and responsible offer.”

Brent crude oil futures traded 2.7% higher at around $104 a barrel, as the deadlock left the Strait of Hormuz largely closed.

Before the war began on February 28, the narrow waterway carried one-fifth of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas, and has since become a central pressure point in the conflict.

Disruption caused by the near-closure of the strait has forced oil producers to cut exports, and Opec oil output dropped further in April to the lowest in more than two decades, a Reuters survey showed on Monday.

Trickle of shipping through Hormuz

Traffic through the Strait of Hormuz is at a trickle compared with before the war. Shipping data on Kpler and LSEG showed that three tankers laden with crude exited the waterway last week, with trackers switched off to avoid Iranian attack.

Sporadic flare-ups around the strait in recent days have tested a ceasefire that has paused all-out warfare since it took effect in early April.

In the United States, surveys show the war is unpopular with voters facing sharply higher gasoline prices less than six months before nationwide elections that will determine whether Trump’s Republican Party retains control of Congress.

Washington has also struggled to build international support, with Nato allies refusing to send ships to reopen the waterway without a full peace deal and an internationally mandated mission.

Hakan Fidan, the foreign minister of Turkiye, which has been liaising closely with the US, Iran and mediator Pakistan since the start of the war, will hold talks in Qatar on Tuesday on the conflict and on ensuring navigational safety in the strait, a Turkish diplomatic source said.

Trump to discuss Iran in Beijing

The next diplomatic or military steps remain unclear. Trump is expected to arrive in Beijing on Wednesday, where Iran is set to be among the topics discussed with Chinese President Xi Jinping.

Trump has been leaning on China to use its influence to push Tehran towards a deal with Washington.

Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Baghaei suggested China could instead use the visit to push back against US objectives in the Gulf.

“Our Chinese friends know very well how to use these opportunities to warn about the consequences of the US’s illegal and bullying actions on regional peace and security,” he said.

Addressing whether combat operations against Iran were over, Trump said in remarks aired on Sunday: “They are defeated, but that doesn’t mean they’re done.”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the war was not over because there was “more work to be done” to remove enriched uranium from Iran, dismantle enrichment facilities and address its alleged proxy forces and ballistic missile capabilities.

Netanyahu told CBS News‘ “60 Minutes” that the preferred route was diplomacy, but he did not rule out the use of force.

Clashes have also continued in southern Lebanon between Israel and Hezbollah, despite a US-brokered ceasefire announced on April 16.

Tens of millions of people could face hunger and starvation if fertilisers are not soon allowed through the Strait of Hormuz, the head of a UN task force aimed at averting a looming humanitarian crisis told AFP on Monday.

Iran has had the strategic waterway — through which a third of the world’s fertilisers normally pass — in a chokehold for months in retaliation for the war launched by the United States and Israel on February 28, disrupting a trade critical for farmers around the world in a race against the end of planting seasons.

“We have a few weeks ahead of us to prevent what will likely be a massive humanitarian crisis,” Jorge Moreira da Silva, executive director of the United Nations Office for Project Services (UNOPS) and leader of the task force, told AFP in an interview in Paris.

“We may witness a crisis that will force 45 million more people into hunger and starvation.”

The UN secretary general created the task force in March to spearhead a mechanism to allow fertilisers and related raw materials such as ammonia, sulphur and urea through the strait.

For weeks, Moreira da Silva has been working to convince the belligerent parties to allow even a few ships through, and has met with “more than 100 countries” to rally UN member state support around the mechanism.

A growing number of countries are showing support for the plan, he said, but the United States and Iran, as well as Gulf countries — who are key fertiliser producers, are not yet fully on board.

While the ultimate hope is for a “lasting peace” deal in the region and “freedom of navigation for all commodities” through the strait, “the problem is the planting season can’t wait”, Moreira da Silva said, with some ending in African nations within weeks.

Global focus has been on the economic impacts of the throttled oil and gas trade, but the United Nations has been sounding the alarm of the threat the blockade poses to the world’s food security, with countries in Africa and Asia likely to be particularly hard hit.

‘Political will’

Moreira da Silva said the United Nations could have the mechanism up and running in seven days but even if the strait were to reopen now, it would take three to four months to return to normality.

“It’s just a matter of time. If we don’t stop the origin of the crisis soon, we will have to deal with the consequences through humanitarian aid.”

While food prices have not exploded yet, Moreira da Silva said, there has been a “massive increase” in fertiliser costs, which experts say would likely lead to a drop in agriculture productivity and send food prices soaring.

Moreira da Silva said moving just an average of five vessels a day of fertilisers and related raw materials through the strait would head off the crisis for farmers.

What’s missing, he said, is “the political will”.

“We can’t procrastinate on what is possible to do, and what is urgent to do— which is let the fertilisers cross the strait and, through that, minimise the risk of massive food insecurity at the global level.”