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LAST UPDATE | 9 hrs ago
KEIR STARMER HAS said bringing former prime minister Gordon Brown back into the UK government is a “future-looking” move.
Brown will be the British prime minister’s special envoy on global finance, helping forge international cooperation on issues including the economy and defence.
Starmer also appointed former deputy Labour leader Harriet Harman as his adviser on women and girls.
The decision to offer unpaid, part-time roles to two of the biggest names from the last Labour government comes after Starmer suffered a disastrous set of election results in Wales, Scotland and English councils.
Asked about his decision to bring back “blasts from the past”, he told broadcasters: “I want women to have the opportunities that they deserve. I want to be able to tackle misogyny, I’ve made commitments on this and Harriet working with the team is the absolutely right person to do that.
Together, we will build a stronger and fairer Britain. pic.twitter.com/AuJHgCWV5d
— Keir Starmer (@Keir_Starmer) May 9, 2026
“So it’s very future-looking, because this is about making sure that every woman has the opportunities that she deserves, and so Harriet will lead on that work, working with the Cabinet, working with the team.
“For Gordon obviously, one of the big challenges we face is global finance. The war in Iran is causing real problems, economic impact.
“We need more spending on defence and security, that needs to come together around international mechanisms and Gordon’s got a track record on that, and so that is building the strong economy of the future.
“So on both fronts, they have very future-looking roles. They are vital to how we strengthen our country and take it forward and provide the opportunities that give people that hope for a better future.”
Reform UK leader Nigel Farage, whose party made significant gains at the elections, mocked Starmer over Brown’s appointment.
“An unpopular prime minister who lost a general election is now seen by Starmer as being the saviour. Labour are doomed,” he said.
Brown’s appointment comes as the UK prepares to hold the presidency of the G20 group of leading industrialised nations next year.
Harman will work with ministers on work to tackle violence against women and girls, improving job prospects and increasing representation in parliament and public life.
She will work with the head of the Civil Service to “drive a shift in culture” across the Civil Service and ministerial offices, No 10 said.
Both Brown and Harman met Starmer in No 10 ahead of their appointments being announced.
Starmer will seek to use a major speech on Monday and then the King’s Speech on Wednesday to attempt to reset his premiership in the aftermath of the electoral mauling.
Earlier, he said he would be setting out the path forward as well as “the convictions and values that drive me” in the coming days, as he continues to defy calls to quit over Labour’s disastrous result in local elections.
He reiterated that he would not “walk away”, saying if he resigned it would “plunge the country into chaos”.
“But that doesn’t mean we don’t need to respond. It doesn’t mean we don’t need to rebuild. It doesn’t mean that we don’t need to set out the path ahead,” he said.
“That’s what I’m going to do in the coming days.”
He said responding to “tough” results, which saw Labour lose more than a thousand councillors in England and reduced from the government to a single-figure rump in Wales, would mean “being assertive in our values” and “unifying rather than dividing”.
Dozens of Labour backbenchers have publicly suggested Starmer should either quit or set a timetable for his departure.
Earlier, deputy Labour leader Lucy Powell said that unless the party can win back voters lost to Reform UK and the Greens, then Nigel Farage would take the keys to No 10 at the next general election.
She told BBC Radio 4′s Today programme that Starmer should stay in his position. “Thinking that setting out some kind of timetable would put to bed the issues of leadership, I think is actually the wrong conclusion here.
“Because all that would do is fire the starting gun of a, quite honestly, very distracting and ongoing debate about leadership.”
But she said Labour needed to win back its traditional voters: “We’ve got a big job of work to rebuild that voter coalition, that supporter base that has traditionally been our working class communities across the North and the Midlands and other parts of the country and our urban, liberal, middle-class support as well.
“We’ve got a job of work to do to reunite that voter coalition.
“And the stakes are really, really high if we don’t, because if we don’t, over the coming months and years, then Nigel Farage is going to be walking into Downing Street, and that is on us, and we have to get that right.”
Starmer has been caught by the rise of Reform UK on the right, with Farage’s party making spectacular gains, and the Green Party on the left also making inroads in Labour’s urban heartlands.
With full results in from 131 of the 136 English councils, Labour had lost control of 37 councils and suffered a loss of over 1,400 seats.
Councils which had been Labour for generations in the North were lost, while the party’s grip on London has also been severely weakened.
In Wales, having been in government with half the seats in the Senedd at the last election, the party was reduced to just nine of the 96 seats available in the newly enlarged legislature, with First Minister Baroness Eluned Morgan the highest profile casualty.
While many of Starmer’s critics have been those on the left of the party who were never his natural supporters, the scale of the defeats has prompted more moderate voices to demand change.
Clive Betts, the party’s joint longest-serving MP, said the Cabinet should make it clear to Starmer he has to go “in the not too distant future”.
He told BBC Radio 4’s Today: “I think there’s now a responsibility on the Cabinet to talk to Keir and to recognise, as they obviously are picking up on the doorstep, that this can’t carry on forever.
“There has to be a timetable. There has to be a way to actually bring in a new leader in a proper and constructive manner in the next few months.”
Health Secretary Wes Streeting, who has continued to attract speculation about his ambitions despite publicly denying plans for a leadership tilt, said the prime minister will “have my support” in setting out how the government will move forward on Monday.
But facing questions from reporters on Friday night as he attended the count for Redbridge Council, where Labour clung on to power, he declined to say whether he believed Starmer was the right person to lead the party into the next general election.
“I’ll continue putting my shoulder to the wheel as the Health and Social Care Secretary, who’s getting the NHS back on its feet and making sure it’s fit for the future,” he said.
Former deputy leader Angela Rayner, widely viewed as a potential challenger for the leadership, has not yet commented on the results.
Nor has Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham, whose path back to Westminster has previously been blocked by Labour’s ruling national executive committee.
Powell, a Manchester MP, said Burnham was “very popular and he’s a great asset to the Labour Party” and “I want to see us using all of the talents that we have”.
But she added: “I don’t want to see a leadership challenge, that’s not how we operate in the Labour Party… We don’t do hostile takeovers in the Labour Party, it’s not what we’re about, it’s not what people want to see, it’s not what our members want to see.”
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