Royal Marine delivers vision to save Labour as Keir Starmer clings on | Politics | News
What is the summit of armed forces minister Al Carns’s ambitions? (Image: Getty)
A potential leadership rival to Sir Keir Starmer has set out his vision for how to save Labour and stop Nigel Farage. Armed forces minister Al Carns’ intervention on “politics and leadership” comes as the Prime Minister battles for survival and Labour reels at disastrous elections in which Reform UK made gains across Britain.
The former soldier’s hard-hitting account – running to approximately 850 words – of why working people have abandoned Labour has turbocharged rumours about the former colonel’s leadership ambitions at a time when his party leader is facing calls to step down. Mark Francois, his Conservative opposite number, said: “It has been an open secret for months within both political and military circles that Al Carns intends to run for the Labour leadership. The SBS motto is ‘by strength and guile’, so we will now presumably learn how much he has of both.”
Writing in The New Statesman, the armed forces minister warns that Labour will continue to lose voters unless it grasps the impact of financial insecurity on ordinary people, describing how households are “permanently on the edge of a crisis”.
He said: “Working-class voters have not simply left Labour. Many feel Labour stopped understanding their lives, and so they looked elsewhere.”
His article comes amid mounting doubts about whether higher-profile potential leadership contenders will secure the 81 nominations needed to challenge Sir Keir, with Mayor of Greater Manchester Andy Burnham yet to secure a Commons seat.
The Prime Minister faces the greatest crisis of his premiership after the election results in which Reform took councils and Labour lost power in the Welsh Senedd for the first time.
Mr Carns, who entered Parliament in 2024, writes: “The English, Scottish and Welsh election results didn’t come from nowhere. They follow years of working people feeling like the system isn’t on their side – and they’re correct about that.”
A Labour insider blasted Mr Carns as a “total opportunist”, saying: “If he was so senior in the armed forces, why has he walked out and suddenly become a Member of Parliament? I think he is just typical of the type of people that Starmer’s been taken in by.”
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Al Carns has set out a vision for Labour revival (Image: PA)
On his website, he states he “was due to become a one-star Brigadier General” in June 2024, but made the “difficult but important decision to leave the military and pursue a new agenda for change in politics”.
Mr Carns described in his article how he “grew up in Aberdeen in a working-class family with a single mum” and understands the pressures when “money is tight”. The 46-year-old warned of the consequences “when high streets are empty and people feel like Britain is broke”.
In a blast at both the Reform leader and Brexit, he said: “Farage told people that Brexit would solve immigration, increase prosperity, and restore stability. It did not. Now he offers the same politics again – but this time with more anger, more division and more slogans.”
Delivering “seriousness” and “stability and fairness”, he claimed, is “how Labour defeats Nigel Farage”.
Insisting Labour must rebuild support across Britain, he said: “What is the point of Labour if it does not represent Sheffield, Stoke-on-Trent, Barnsley, Swansea and Aberdeen? What is the point of the Labour Party if it cannot replace despair and frustration with hope, stability and purpose?”
Al Carns climbs a frozen waterfall as he carries out reserve training alongside British Commandoes (Image: Getty)
His article ranges far beyond his military brief, with the Birmingham Selly Oak MP stating: “You can spend billions on defence, but if families are struggling and the economy is under strain, you are kidding yourself about how strong this country really is. If families are one bill away from trouble, the country is not stable.”
Emma Burnell, editor of the LabourList website, poured cold water on Mr Carns’ chances of becoming an official candidate.
She told the Express: “Labour MPs are talking about a few names as potential leadership contenders, and while Al Carns is mentioned, it’s not considered at all likely. Labour MPs respect his service and back story – and he is a good communicator.
“But he is very unlikely to be able to gather the 81 MPs needed to run in a contest, and even if he did, to then get the backing of a membership who have less awareness of him than they do of the other potential contenders.”
