"He can’t survive" | Mick Lynch on Keir Starmer's response to a leadership challenge

Now he's saying, I'm in it to win it.He thinks he can win a leadership contest.Do you agree with him?

Well, not with a slogan like that, which he's borrowed off the National Lottery, which is fairly pathetic.I don't think he can win.I think his time's up.And I think whether it's via the rules and the election of the process, or whether it's a coronation or whatever it's called, or he hands over, I think he's gone.He can't survive as leader of the Labour Party or as prime minister.The people don't want him.

That's the most important aspect.Whatever the MPs think, whatever the spin doctors think and whoever's writing his slogan have to come to the conclusion that he's not wanted by the British people and he can't carry on as Prime Minister.

And when you say the British people, it was less than two years ago that he won a landslide.

Yeah and they've changed their mind because he hasn't been effective enough, he hasn't done the job and it's time for him to conclude that he needs to go with some dignity.I think he will get annihilated in an election.of the membership.I don't think he's got any chance of winning and I think that's the end of the road.

It depends who he's up against, I suppose, doesn't it?

Well, it does and I think he'll be up against Andy Burnham.

If he wins Makerfield?

Yes, I think he will win Makerfield and I think he will come to Parliament expecting to become Prime Minister.

Leila Cunningham, does what Keir Starmer is saying tonight change anything for your candidate in Makerfield, do you think?

No, I don't think it changes anything.I don't think it's about the leadership, Labour Party, I think it's about the Labour Party in itself.And I think prime ministers can survive bad headlines, and he's had many, but it's massive public disappointment.He came promising change, promising positive change, and the country's worse off than when he came into power.And I don't think the leadership of the Labour Party is going to save it.I mean, you got annihilated in the local elections because it's just a different salesman selling the same product.

It's low growth, high tax, no defence.expensive energy and that is a failed model that I think Burnham might even go harder on.

What do you say to Leila Cunningham about that?You can change the personnel at the top but the policies remain, broadly speaking, the same.

You can change the direction of the government through effective leadership and having a programme that people can get behind.The problem with Starmer and Rachel Reeves and the people who were at the top of the Labour Party when they came in, they don't have anything to believe in and they've given the British people no hope.Burnham is capable.He's a capable politician.I'm aware that he's flip -flopped and gone on the zigzags a few times, but he's got to direct himself into a place where he can lead the country effectively.We've had enough of technocrats and managerial politics.

We need people who have got some belief.The stuff he's saying about the intervention of the state in the economy, about council housing, and about having a direction for the party will come over to the people.

I think that's the fundamental problem with Labour, is that you believe that growth comes from the government, when actually growth comes from the grafters, the risk -takers and the businesses.And Labour's hell -bent on punishing them.And I think what we really need is a government that doesn't treat growth as a government slogan.It's not a cash injection here, a cash injection here, an intervention here.It's actually rewarding those that take risks, put everything on the line to create growth.And the Labour Party insists on punishing them.

Well, we haven't had an economy where the risk -takers are making the way.We've had an economy where rich people are subsidised continuously, even in building infrastructure.The contracting companies in HS2, for instance, are making a fortune.The Tories had no programme for building this economy.I don't think your party has got any programme for building the economy.I don't think they really understand how the economy works.

And they certainly don't understand working people and what they need from employment and all the rest of it.And I think Andy Burnham can have an infrastructure growth policy that will be effective.

I tell you what doesn't work for growth is making it more expensive and more difficult to hire people and you see we have rising unemployment against young people because when you increase minimum wage one of the many levers they've pulled to punish businesses.

Your policy is that working people should be poorer then, they should have less wages.

When you increase minimum wage without growth businesses do three things they either cut the hours, cut employers or increase costs.You cannot magically waive growth.You have to have growth.

The problems of youth employment pre -exist the National Insurance Changes.

We're not talking about National Insurance Changes, we're talking about minimum wage because it is youth that take those entry -level jobs.

But those problems existed before the Labour Party were elected.

I'm not doubting that, but they've been accelerated.by policies that are brought in by the Labour Party and right now we have youth unemployment and the Labour Party's answer is to inject, I don't know, 300 million to correct a mistake that they made through policy.

Your answer is to cut their wages?

My answer is to give them jobs, make it easier and cheaper to hire and we will have more.

So say it out loud, lower wages.

There is no point in having lower wages if no one's getting hired.