U.K. Prime Min­is­ter Keir Starmer in­sist­ed Tues­day that he has no in­ten­tion of re­sign­ing as calls grew loud­er with­in his Labour Par­ty for him to step down and some ju­nior mem­bers of his gov­ern­ment quit in protest.

A day be­fore the state open­ing of Par­lia­ment when the gov­ern­ment will present its leg­isla­tive pro­gram for the com­ing year, Starmer tried to shore up sup­port with­in his Cab­i­net.

Starmer’s fu­ture has be­come a hot top­ic over the past few fever­ish days fol­low­ing his­toric loss­es for the Labour Par­ty in lo­cal elec­tions last week, which if re­peat­ed in a na­tion­al elec­tion that has to be held by 2029, would see it over­whelm­ing­ly eject­ed from pow­er.