Who Will Likely Replace Keir Starmer? Ed Miliband Branded 'Communist' Successor In Plot To Oust Embattled PM

The row over who might become the next Labour leader has spilled out of Westminster's private corners and into the studio lights, with Ed Miliband now being openly touted as the man to watch. What makes this striking isn't the gossip itself, but the combustible mix of scandal, procedure and ideology that's feeding it.​

In the Commons, the moment that seemed to snap the tension into focus came at Prime Minister's Questions, when Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch pressed Keir Starmer on whether he knew about Lord Mandelson's continued links to Jeffrey Epstein before appointing him UK ambassador to the United States, according to reporting in the Daily Express. The paper described a 'sharp intake of breath' in the chamber, followed by uproar from MPs across the House.​

Starmer, the Express said, later accused Mandelson of withholding facts about the depth of his relationship with Epstein during the application process. The same report claimed Angela Rayner urged Labour backbenchers to demand full transparency over the appointment, and that insiders were calling Starmer's position 'indefensible' while pressing for the resignation of his chief of staff, Morgan McSweeney.​

The Keir Starmer Replacement Talk Turns Toxic

Into that atmosphere stepped Sir Iain Duncan Smith, never a man to waste a political opening. Asked on GB News who could succeed Starmer if the pressure became unbearable, the veteran Conservative MP pointed at Miliband, now Labour's Environment Secretary, and predicted he could win if he ran.​

Duncan Smith did not bother with euphemism. 'He's overwhelmingly popular. But he has been behaving in this communist-type fashion, imposing rules and regulations on ordinary members of the public, making the cost of motoring higher.' Then, with the sort of blunt certainty that can sound like analysis even when it's really instinct, he added: 'But the Labour Party members love him because this is the kind of socialism that they want, and he is doing it ... So if he put his hat into the ring you'd end up with him without a doubt. Without question. It would just be a bun fight for the others.'​

That's the rhetorical punch. The procedural reality is slower and messier. Labour's rules require would-be leadership contenders to secure nominations from 20% of Labour MPs, which LabourList has noted would currently mean the backing of 81 MPs. Separate analysis of Labour's post-2021 rule changes also underlines how that higher nomination threshold was designed to make it harder for challengers to get on the ballot in the first place.

Why The Keir Starmer Replacement Matters Beyond Westminster

Still, it's hard to ignore what this episode reveals about the battle lines Labour can't quite bury. Miliband is being cast—by opponents, at least—as a symbol of the party's green and statist impulses, and that caricature is now colliding with a growing argument over the price tag of net zero.​

A briefing paper published by the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA) argued that the 'gross cash costs' of achieving net zero could be £7.6 trillion, and 'over £9 trillion' if carbon costs are included. The IEA paper also contrasts those figures with the Climate Change Committee's far lower estimate that the cost of achieving net zero over 2025–2050 will be 'just' £108 billion. However you rate the IEA's politics, its central complaint—that public bodies have struggled to communicate costs in a way that feels legible to voters—lands uncomfortably in an era when households notice every rise in bills and every new rule that nudges daily life.

What happens next depends on two clocks running at different speeds: the instant outrage of a Commons confrontation and the slower grind of party rules. Yet the chatter about a Keir Starmer replacement is already doing damage in the here and now, because once a government looks like it's arguing about succession, everything else starts to look provisional.