User:Swanstarr/sandbox
2026 Welsh Labour leadership election scandal[edit]
The 2026 Welsh Labour leadership election scandal was an allegation from a number of Welsh MPs and MSs that Keir Starmer had encouraged them not to endorse Jeremy Miles during the 2026 Welsh Labour Leadership election. The first person to make the allegation was the head of the Welsh Cooperative Party, Huw Lewis on 6 December 2026, but other Welsh Labour figures also said Starmer had approached them over the following week, including Julie James, and Mick Antoniw.
Starmer initially denied the allegation, both to the media and to parliament, when on 9 December the leader of Plaid Cymru in the House of Commons asked him during Prime Minister's Questions, but on 12 December, an audio recording was leaked by Huw Lewis of a Cooperative Party meeting where Starmer encouraged the party to endorse Miles' opponent, Eluned Morgan.
When the scandal was initially broken, supporters of Keir Starmer questioned what difference it would've made to the election, as most of the people who made the allegation against Starmer endorsed Miles anyway. However, when the audio recordings were leaked, proving Starmer's denials wrong, many Labour MPs said that Starmer should resign due to lying to the house.
A large number of government staff, including most of the Left wing ministers Starmer had appointed during the 'Guy Fawkes Night massacre', a cabinet reshuffle that had happened a month prior where Starmer replaced many of the more moderate members of his cabinet with more left wing MPs.
In the wake of the scandal, Keir Starmer announced his resignation as Labour leader on 14 December.