Day 8: Mutiny in week one

Four Labour PPSs resigned on Monday 11 May, followed by four junior ministers on Tuesday. Jess Phillips called Starmer's continuation 'wholly untenable'; Miatta Fahnbulleh said he had 'lost the trust and confidence of the public'.

These eight departures were the precondition for Streeting's Cabinet-level resignation two days later: they stripped the whip's payroll floor before the bigger break landed. Read full version ↓

Josh Simons resigned the Makerfield seat on Thursday 14 May so Andy Burnham could stand in the by-election and qualify for the Labour leadership race. Burnham, as Greater Manchester Mayor, is not currently an MP and cannot enter the contest without one.

The Labour NEC controls candidate approval for by-elections and previously blocked Burnham by eight votes to one. Its decision on Makerfield is the single procedural test that decides whether the Burnham candidacy runs or collapses. Read full version ↓

LabourList's tracker recorded 96 Labour MPs publicly calling for Starmer to go against 103 defending him by Thursday afternoon. The formal contest threshold is 81 nominations submitted to the party's General Secretary; that count is reportedly met but the paperwork was unfiled as of Thursday evening.

The 81 figure was set in 2014 to make leadership challenges harder. Cabinet splitting publicly before backbenchers crossed the threshold is the edge case the Collins review did not anticipate. Read full version ↓

Rhun ap Iorwerth was elected First Minister of Wales on Tuesday 12 May, the first non-Labour head of the Welsh Government in 27 years. Two Welsh Green MSs provided the votes without a written confidence-and-supply agreement.

Plaid governs as a minority of 43 in a 96-seat chamber. Every contested vote needs both Green votes, and no signed deal commits The Greens to providing them. Read full version ↓

John Swinney was sworn in at Holyrood on Thursday 14 May and confirmed a Section 30 request within the week and a draft referendum bill within 100 days, despite the SNP winning seven fewer seats than his own trigger.

The request is politically functional even if Westminster refuses: a formal rejection gives the SNP a dated document to campaign on. Post-election YouGov polling shows 56 per cent No against 44 per cent Yes, a 12-point shift from February. Read full version ↓

Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards Daniel Greenberg opened a formal investigation of Nigel Farage on Wednesday 13 May over an undeclared £5 million personal gift from crypto investor Christopher Harborne, received in early 2024.

Three parallel inquiries now run into the same donor: the Standards Commissioner on declarations, the Electoral Commission on party donations, and the FCA on Farage's Stack BTC stake. Harborne's combined footprint across Reform, the Brexit Party, and the personal gift runs at roughly £37 million. Read full version ↓

The King's Speech on Wednesday 13 May contained 27 bills but no Representation of the People Bill. The RPA Bill, which would have imposed a retrospective ban on cryptocurrency donations, was excluded from the wash-up before Parliament prorogued on 29 April.

The March 2026 Rycroft review moratorium on crypto donations remains the only operative instrument, and Spotlight on Corruption identified three enforcement gaps it does not cover. Read full version ↓

Ken Skates became interim Welsh Labour leader on Saturday 9 May, the party's fourth leader in just over two years. Eluned Morgan resigned after losing her Ceredigion Penfro constituency on 7 May, the first sitting head of a UK devolved government to lose their own seat.

Welsh Labour fell from 30 of 60 Senedd seats in 2021 to 9 of 96 in 2026. The new proportional system Morgan's own government introduced amplified the collapse. Read full version ↓

Bute House said Starmer had agreed to meet next month to discuss a referendum on independence. Downing Street said a referendum would not be on the agenda. Two readouts from one phone call, no agreed record.

Readout discrepancies are a familiar device in UK-devolved relations; the political cost falls asymmetrically, because Swinney needs the meeting to be about independence and Starmer needs it to be about anything else. Read full version ↓

Russell Findlay refused to resign as Scottish Conservative leader after the party fell to 12 Holyrood seats and lost all five constituency MSPs. MSP Sandesh Gulhane did not rule out a leadership challenge.

Findlay is the only major party leader at Holyrood refusing post-election talks with Swinney, keeping the Scottish Conservatives outside the inter-party machinery at the moment Holyrood's committee structure is being assembled. Read full version ↓

Nine of the 14 Reform-controlled councils raised Band D council tax for 2026/27, per The Canary's analysis and the LSE Grantham Research Institute. Eight dropped 'climate change' or 'decarbonisation' from their planning language.

Several of the tax-raising decisions pre-date the 7 May election, meaning councils Reform won in earlier rounds were already breaking the pledge before the new results came in. Read full version ↓

At least seven elected Reform UK councillors were suspended, expelled, or resigned within seven days of the 7 May elections. Liberal Democrat peer Lord Mark Pack's tracker confirmed the seven; Byline Times identified over 30 more facing potential disciplinary action.

Reform's councillor base tripled to 2,126 on 7 May. The first-week departure rate runs well above the 10 per cent annual projection the party's own modelling allowed for. Read full version ↓

Peter Harris was elected Reform group leader at Essex County Council on Monday 11 May with Russell Quirk as deputy. Formal confirmation as council leader is at the 28 May AGM at County Hall, Chelmsford.

Essex is one of the two largest Reform councils, alongside Lancashire. Harris arrives without prior cabinet experience into a £2 billion-plus annual budget environment. Read full version ↓