Every day, it feels like some new prominent Labour figure gestures towards a coup. Over the weekend, the Sunday Times reported that Andy Burnham is eyeing a specific constituency to gain a seat in Parliament and challenge for the party leadership. Meanwhile, the former deputy prime minister Angela Rayner threw her weight behind Labour MPs opposed to the removal of jury trials for defendants facing sentences of less than three years.

And every day one of Labour’s top brass is trotted out to wag their finger at conspirators looking to replace Keir Starmer. Deputy Leader Lucy Powell asked the party to stop “navel gazing”, while Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood managed a deft swipe at Burnham on Laura Kuenssberg’s Sunday show. Nobody, though, has been able to explain exactly why Starmer should stay.

Other Cabinet members try to explain why Labour’s polling has had such an unprecedented collapse. Health Secretary Wes Streeting, another obvious leadership hopeful, claims that the party’s problem lies in its “technocratic” communications. That’s all well and good, but he knows this will never change under Starmer, a dyed-in-the-wool technocrat, whose bloodless waffling about “five missions” is not convincing anyone. In the 2024 manifesto, he appeared rather fittingly in monochrome grey.

Next year’s local elections will be hard to spin as anything other than disastrous for Labour. The electoral map it faces is almost entirely defensive, with the party hoping to cling on to its voters in cities. Even if by some miracle polling improves and Starmer transmogrifies into the politician everyone knows he will never be, the party will still struggle. Reform UK is polling well in Wales and the Red Wall, while Zack Polanski’s Greens are outflanking Labour from the Left in inner-city progressive strongholds. It will be easy for any potential challenger to argue that Starmerism hasn’t succeeded with any electoral group.

The Prime Minister has continually struggled to present a compelling worldview to the public. Mahmood’s asylum reforms are a final Hail Mary to ward off Reform. However, carrying out policies which most of the electorate views as priorities comes with consequences internally. A Survation poll in November showed that the Home Secretary’s approval rating had dropped by a huge 32 points among Labour members.

Make no mistake — for all the vague media protestations, this is a party leadership that is on notice. Next year’s elections could be Starmer’s swan song. Even still, it is unclear what anyone likely to replace him could deliver beyond slicker comms. At best, a change of leader would amount to a rebrand rather than a reckoning, leaving the party’s underlying problems intact.