Under Jeremy Corbyn, Tom Watson was the deputy leader of the Labour Party. Notoriously, he used his position to plot with other members of the Labour right to prevent his own party from forming a government. Now, the exact same guy is begging Labour MPs to drop the plot to oust Keir Starmer:
Just @Tom_Watson, the Palintir minion, asking Labour MPs not to do what he, the Labour right and their zionist friends spent all of 2015-19 trying to do – ousting the elected leader!
Is he worried a new leader might not be so servile towards his new boss, Peter Thiels, Palintir? pic.twitter.com/ucnhPgtV0J
— Steve W (@StevenGWalker74) May 5, 2026
Labour getting desperate
Tom Watson is now officially a peer, and his title is Lord Watson of Wyre Forest. The man who nominated Watson for his peerage in 2022 was none other than Keir Starmer. This is important to bear in mind.
As Skwawkbox reported in 2019:
Labour sources have accused deputy leader and Shadow Brexit Secretary of Brexit-based ‘coup’ after ‘coordinated’ statements. Pair were also seen looking cosy in ‘off book’ meeting
On Monday, Labour’s Shadow Brexit Secretary Keir Starmer and deputy leader Tom Watson both made similar statements that any Brexit compromise Labour might agree with the government would have to be subject to a new ‘confirmatory’ public vote:
…
Watson even went as far as to claim that Labour is a ‘remain and reform party’.
Both men’s statements were at odds with Labour’s policy of enacting the 2016 referendum result, keeping any form of new public vote as a last resort if needed to prevent a damaging Tory Brexit or no-deal departure.
The statements – considered extremely damaging to Labour electorally with Farage’s Brexit party riding high in the polls – are also regarded by Labour insiders as evidence of a new attempted coup by so-called ‘centrists’ in the party.
Labour would lose the 2019 election, and polling showed it was the party’s shifting stance on Brexit that proved to be the decisive factor.
Ironically, both Corbyn and Starmer lost public support as a result of decisions made by Keir Starmer. This has now led to a situation in which Starmer is facing a coup of his own.
The coup is on the other foot
Fast forward to today, this is what the Guardianare reporting:
Labour MPs have been urged to stop plotting to remove Keir Starmer by Tom Watson, who as a junior minister spearheaded the last attempted coup against a Labour prime minister, when Tony Blair faced a revolt in 2006.
We forgot to mention Watson’s plot against Blair (just like the Guardian ‘forgot’ to mention Watson’s plot against Corbyn).
They added:
Watson’s warning came as Steve Reed, the housing and communities secretary, and a key Starmer loyalist, said Labour would risk “annihilation” if it decided to try to change leaders.
But with results for Labour expected to be particularly grim in Thursday’s elections for the Scottish and Welsh parliaments and English councils, senior party figures have told the Guardian that activists were being repeatedly told that the prime minister was the problem, rather than the party.
This is the problem for Starmer’s loyalists. It’s difficult to convince MPs they face oblivion without Starmer when they’re experiencing it with him.
Over on Substack, Tom Watson had this to say:
An article in today’s Times suggests several Labour backbench MPs are considering writing to Keir Starmer after Thursday’s local elections, asking him to set out a timetable for his departure. The article presents the plan as an echo of 2006, when a round-robin letter to Tony Blair, followed by a series of ministerial resignations, helped force him to say he would serve no more than another year.
He added:
If any of these anonymous MPs want my advice, I am available for wise counsel. I would tell them not to be as reckless as we were in 2006. Experience is what you get just after you needed it most.
Watson is apologising for helping to push Tony Blair out – the only good thing he ever did.
The reason he’s doing so is because Labour went down the electoral shitter after Blair left. The thing is, though – that was always going to happen. It just took time for the public to wake up to how wretched New Labour was.
Reasons to be Keirful
Here are the reasons Watson gives for not giving Starmer the boot:
Firstly, it will not work. A letter that starts as an anonymous threat will end as a public loyalty test. It will turn political anxiety into a Westminster psychodrama and it will do so in front of the voters.
We mean, it definitely might work. Starmer isn’t just massively unpopular with MPs; he’s massively unpopular with everyone. It’s not like people will be marching in the streets to demand he stays in position.
Secondly, it would damage the whole Parliamentary Labour Party. Voters will see a party talking to itself while the country is shouting at it.
Starmer became PM in July 2024; look what’s happened to government approval since then:
Getting rid of Starmer is no guarantee the party’s approval will improve. At the same time, you have to acknowledge things probably can’t get any worse. Well, not unless they replace Starmer with Wes Streeting anyway.
Thirdly, it would give Labour’s opponents the easiest attack line in politics: they are not focused on you, they are focused on themselves. Reform would dine out on it. The Greens would dine out on it. The Conservatives, who have recently behaved like a leadership contest with a party attached, would dine out on it. Even the Liberal Democrats would find a way to get a morsel out of it.
At the moment, all these parties are ‘dining out’ on the fact that Keir Starmer is PM – a man the public by and large despise. He literally broke the record for being the most unpopular PM since polling began:
BREAKING | Starmer is now the most unpopular Prime Minister in history – WORSE than Truss
Starmer – 13% satisfied, 79% dissatisfied
Liz Truss – 16% satisfied, 67% dissatisfied
Via @Ipsos_in_the_UK, 11-17 Sep pic.twitter.com/ktfOVowwgf
— Stats for Lefties
(@LeftieStats) September 27, 2025
Fourthly, it would not answer the real question. If Labour has lost support to Reform, the Greens, the Liberal Democrats and the Conservatives, the solution cannot simply be a different name on the door. The party has to listen harder, think deeper and recover its political purpose.
Yeah, but let’s be real, Starmer isn’t going to do any of that. He’ll say things like ‘I’m going listen deeper and think harder‘, but he won’t actually do it, because he’s a liar with zero curiosity.
Saul Staniforth summarised Watson’s intervention as follows:
“Tom Watson is essentially saying, look don’t be hasty. He says whatever the rights and wrongs of Labours current woes, the answer is not two dozen backbench MPs writing a public letter calling on the PM to resign”.
Tom ‘wrecker’ Watson. pic.twitter.com/EIt6jEN3gp
— Saul Staniforth (@SaulStaniforth) May 6, 2026
Live by
Elsewhere in the the media, journalists are trying to fabricate the internal divisions which Watson and others created in Corbyn’s Labour:
Mainstream media are pushing a bogus narrative about a split in the Green Party, because the same level of batshit factional in-fighting that battered the Labour Party between 2015-2020 doesn’t exist.
They’re trying to invent Tom Watson from first principles. https://t.co/gZyiAEpWwP
— Marl Karx (@BareLeft) May 3, 2026
The Labour right lived by the plot, and they’re going to die by it.
And we do mean that figuratively, of course. Tom Watson will remain a baron for the foreseeable future, because we live in a country in which establishment politicians can nominate their co-conspirators to receive life peerages.
Featured image via The Canary
By Willem Moore
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