By Elizabeth Piper, Andrew MacAskill and Sarah Young
LONDON, May 12 (Reuters) – Prime Minister Keir Starmer defied calls to resign on Tuesday, telling ministers he would “get on with governing” despite a “destabilising” 48 hours of growing calls to set out a timetable for his departure after an election drubbing.
At a meeting of his cabinet team of ministers, Starmer, in the top job for less than two years, repeated that while he took responsibility for one of his Labour Party’s worst election defeats, there had been no official move to trigger a leadership contest.
“The past 48 hours have been destabilising for government and that has a real economic cost for our country and for families,” Starmer told ministers, according to his Downing Street office.
“The country expects us to get on with governing. That is what I am doing and what we must do as a Cabinet.”
British government bonds rallied weakly on Starmer’s comments, but remained firmly in the red for the day.
His defiance was in marked contrast to the feelings of many in his Labour Party.
On Tuesday, a junior minister resigned after a handful of ministerial aides also left the government. More than 80 Labour lawmakers have publicly called for him to set a resignation date so the party could install a new leader in an orderly manner.
Starmer had sought to shore up his position on Monday when he promised to act more boldly and with more urgency to tackle Britain’s many problems.
He had said the country would never forgive the centre-left Labour Party if it embarked on a leadership challenge, just two years after its huge parliamentary majority was supposed to bring an end to the political chaos that had gripped the country since Britain voted to leave the European Union 10 years ago.
(Reporting by Elizabeth Piper and Sarah Young; editing by William James, Alex Richardson and Kate Holton)
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