Starmer attempts to regain the initiative with a forced reshuffle of his government

The British Prime Minister is taking advantage of today's resignation of his deputy to implement the main reform of his Cabinet, just 14 months after obtaining an absolute majority. The Labour leader is appointing a tougher immigration minister to the Home Office to try to curb Reform UK, the main threat to Downing Street.

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer launched a government reshuffle on Friday afternoon, hoping to regain the initiative and halt its decline just 14 months after winning the election by an absolute majority. The trigger was the resignation of his right-hand woman, Angela Rayner , Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Housing, and second-in-command in the Labour Party, over a tax issue.

Rayner 's departure began to take shape on Wednesday, when he admitted that, due to a "mistake", he had underpaid £40,000 (€46,100) in stamp duty on the purchase of a home last May valued at £800,000 (€922,000) in Hove (East Sussex, on the southern coast of England).

The report by the British government's independent ethics adviser, Sir Laurie Magnus, concluded that Rayner violated the ministerial code by failing to pay sufficient tax, despite "acting with integrity." He received legal advice, but not tax advice .

Rayner was not only Starmer's right-hand woman , but also a strong candidate to replace him one day. A trade unionist who had to drop out of school at 16 after becoming pregnant, Rayner represented the government's far left wing.

Starmer himself was unable to predict yesterday whether he would dismiss Rayner if he had breached the ministerial code, but he has used his departure to carry out the most significant reshuffle of his government since entering Downing Street.

Starmer has announced 12 appointments , with which he aims to regain authority in his party and initiative in the country, in a context in which Labour - and the Conservatives - are eroding in parallel with the rise of Reform UK , a right-wing populist, anti-immigration and anti-EU party capable of setting the agenda.

The one figure whose continued presence was beyond doubt was Treasury Minister Rachel Reeves , who is busy drafting the budget she will present on November 26th, which will see a cut of at least £20 billion between revenue (plus taxes, because GDP is barely growing) and expenditure. Reeves, though weakened, remains Starmer's main bulwark.

The emerging figure is David Lammy , the Foreign Minister who negotiated the political agreement for Gibraltar with Spain after Brexit . He will now be Minister of Justice and Deputy Prime Minister, a position that positions him as a hypothetical successor to Starmer.

Perhaps the most significant change is that of the Home Office, which takes a shot at Reform UK on immigration , one of the main concerns of the British.

Starmer has chosen Shabana Mahmood as head of the department responsible for border control and implementing, for example, the agreement with France to begin returning foreigners arriving by boat after crossing the English Channel (by 2025, around 30,000 people will arrive, a record number).

Mahmood , who is leaving the Justice department, is considered one of the Labour Party's toughest-talking members on immigration. The change is, at the very least, an acknowledgment that her predecessor, Yvette Cooper, hadn't done enough on illegal immigration and asylum. In the economic department, Keir Starmer has appointed Peter Kyle to the Enterprise and Trade department and Pat McFadden to the Work and Pensions department.

According to YouGov, just 11% approve of the British government and its voting intention has plummeted, with Nigel Farage's Reform UK leading the polls (28%), eight points ahead of Labour, in second place, and even further behind the Tories , who are experiencing a trickle of defections to Reform UK. Starmer also faces threats to his left, with the creation of a new party by former Labour candidate Jeremy Corbyn and a turncoat Labour MP.