𝓤𝓷𝓲𝓽𝓮𝓭 𝓝𝓮𝔀𝓼

Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now opens with an unforgettable sequence in which a jungle scene explodes in a series of fireballs to the equally memorable soundtrack of The Doors’ This Is The End. It is clear from the very first moments of the Vietnam epic that this story is not going to have a happy ending. In Westminster, the polls are so dire for Labour that the BBC might as well play The Doors over its coverage of the final hours of Sir Keir Starmer’s push to avoid an electoral catastrophe in Thursday elections to English councils and the Welsh and Scottish parliaments.

Sir Keir Starmer has been in power for just over a year and 300 days. That’s longer than Sir Anthony Eden, Rishi Sunak, Sir Alec-Douglas-Home lasted, and if the results are as bad as forecast then he can expect calls to move out of Downing Street. The sense of an ending hangs over Parliament. What is the worst that could happen?

In England they could lose more than 1,500 councillors. Men and women who have dealt with complaints about bin collections, faulty streetlights and vital services for years will be turfed out, and they will blame a Prime Minister arrived in office more famous for his freebies than his policies – and who then stripped pensioners of their winter fuel payments, terrified farmers with an inheritance tax bombshells, hiked taxes on employers and made a pal of Jeffrey Epstein US ambassador.

Losing seats to Reform and the Greens is much more frightening for Labour than seeing them go to the Tories. These parties want to replace Labour, and now their local activists will have a campaigning base within local government.

If Reform win 1,400 seats the party will claim it is on the road to taking power in Westminster. This will send panic through Labour ranks and deepen the belief that a new leader is needed who can take on Nigel Farage.

Zack Polanski’s Greens could top the poll in London’s Hackney. This would be the first time they have led in a borough in the capital. If they can win there, there will be fears that Lambeth and Lewisham and Islington – the supposed power base of London Labour will also fall.

More misery awaits in Scotland where More in Common warns Labour is facing its “worst ever” defeat in the Edinburgh Parliament. A party which once dominated Scottish politics could see its vote share fall to as low as 15%; it might win just 13 of the 129 seats and fall behind Reform UK.

Back in early February, Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar called a press conference and said: “The distraction needs to end, and the leadership in Downing Street has to change.”

MPs in Westminster didn’t follow his advice. But if the results are as bad as feared, many Labour supporters will ask why they did not act to avert this crushing calamity.

Labour’s First Minister Eluned Morgan showed more loyalty to the Prime Minister but her colleagues may well call for him to go when the Senedd results come crashing in.

Labour has been in power in Wales since 1999. It has been the biggest party in every general election since 1922. And now it is on track to be pushed into third place behind pro-independence Plaid Cymru and Reform.

Even Sir Keir’s best friends may hold their heads in their hands at this point and ask: “If he can’t win in Wales, where can he win?”

The UK appears on course to be a country where the first ministers of Scotland, Wales want independence while Northern Ireland’s looks forward to a referendum on Irish unity. People in all unionist parties will ask if a London barrister like Sir Keir is the best person to hold the UK together.

Can he survive? It is not a question of whether he is heading for the exit but when he hands over. The nightmare scenario for MPs who prize self-preservation is that he leaves after leading Labour to destruction in 2029.

His best hope of avoiding an immediate defenestration is thanks to the failure of his rivals to create the swell of support they need to seize the crown.

More In Common found 51% of Britons thought it would be better for the country if he was replaced by another Labour politician. That sounds pretty damning but the same Brits said they would rather have Sir Keir as PM than Angela Rayner, Ed Miliband or Shabana Mahmood.

Labour MPs have clear memories of the chaos which engulfed the Tories once they started changing leaders. There is no guarantee a replacement will boost the popularity of the party, and once there has been one act of regicide the plotting never stops.

The people polled said they would rather have Wes Streeting or Yvette Cooper than Sir Keir running the country. The Health Secretary has no shortage of ambition but the trouble is that he is seen as a Right-winger; the fear will be that if he takes the top job even more of Labour’s Lefty membership base will rush off to join the Greens.

The one Labour figure for which there was huge support was Andy Burnham, the Mayor of Greater Manchester who is dubbed the King of the North. The hitch is that he is no longer an MP and Labour’s governing body stopped him running in the recent Gorton and Denton by-election.

Even if he was able to stand in another by-election, would he win it? Reform and the Greens would through every kitchen sink (and air fryer) in the country at efforts to stop him getting to Westminster; and it would be a hope-killing moment of despair for Labour if either of the insurgent parties won the Manchester mayoralty.

Sir Keir has done everything he can to stop a coup within the party within hours of the results coming in. Parliament is in recess so plotting has to take place on Whatsapp.

The King’s Speech is scheduled for May 13. Britain would look like a basketcase of a nation if the Prime Minister was toppled before then; Labour would be, literally, in power without a plan.

If the King does read out the speech Sir Keir writes for him, it is hard to imagine Labour MPs voting it down or casting the PM out straightaway. With the world wobbling on the edge of an economic crisis and Britain already facing terrifying borrowing costs, the UK cannot afford another bout of self-inflicted instability.

Labour whips will tell unhappy backbenchers that the country is on the verge of more cost of living anguish. They will warn that in a nightmare scenario, if there is a petrol shortage and holiday flights are grounded, the country will never forgive them if they engage in leadership battles as a storm engulfs the land.

And that’s one of the biggest reasons why pretenders to the Labour throne may hold back. Do they want to take over at such a dangerous moment?

There is no spare cash to slash on favoured projects. What would they do differently?

The release of the next cache of the Mandelson emails threatens to embarrass Labour yet again. Why not let Sir Keir hang around to get hit by that particular bolt of lightning?

If borrowing costs surge then the Government will face the choice of breaking the manifesto and hiking up taxes on a cash-strapped population or borrowing yet further and cutting precious public services and benefits? What Labour leader wants to do that?

If the PM hangs on into the summer, the Whips will urge MPs not to topple him during conference season. Labour must not look like a Looney Tunes convention when Nigel Farage is likely to be running victory laps at the Reform gathering.

If Sir Keir is still in post when autumn sweeps in, then all eyes will be on the Budget and the same Whips will plead with MPs to rally behind the PM and the Chancellor because the country’s economic survival is at stake.

There is a path for Sir Keir clinging on for days, weeks and even months but any notion that he can restore Labour’s popularity will almost certainly perish in this election which will show how in less than two years the party has lost the confidence and trust of a nation that was ready to give it a chance.

MPs who want Labour to win a majority at the next general election and are desperate to stop Nigel Farage becoming Prime Minister will fear that if they do nothing until 2029 then hundreds of them will lose their seats. Someone will act. Nobody knows how many pages are left to run in the story of Sir Keir’s time as Prime Minister but he is in his final chapters and the country is heading towards the end.