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United Kingdom Prime Minister Keir Starmer has sought to distance himself from an unofficial briefing to the media by unnamed “allies” that he intends to fight off a leadership contest which, they say, could come just 18 months into his premiership.

On Tuesday evening, unnamed sources were cited in The Guardian newspaper saying Health Secretary Wes Streeting has gathered significant backing to supplant Starmer.

But on Wednesday morning, Streeting denied this, telling journalists that he was “not challenging the prime minister”.

“I’m not doing any of the things some silly briefer said overnight,” he stated.

Asked if those responsible for the briefing should be sacked, Streeting said, “Yes. But he’s [Starmer] got to find them first, and I wouldn’t expect him to waste loads of time on this.”

“There are people around the prime minister who do not follow his model and style of leadership,” he said.

In response to the ensuing media storm, Starmer, whose premiership since last year has been marred by poor polling, told reporters in north Wales on Thursday that briefings against ministers are “completely unacceptable”.

“I have been talking to my team today. I have been assured that no briefing against ministers was done from Number 10, but I have made it clear that I find it absolutely unacceptable,” he said.

The current internal party strife has shone a light on the prime minister’s standing as leader of the Labour Party.

In its most recent poll on Tuesday, pollster YouGov said of 4,989 people polled, only 27 percent thought he should continue as Labour Party leader.

Here’s what we know about the rumours of a leadership plot:

What are the rumours about a leadership challenge?

On Tuesday evening, unnamed senior Starmer aides told The Guardian newspaper that any attempt to remove the prime minister would be “reckless” and “dangerous”. According to the aides, deposing Starmer so early in his term as prime minister would undermine financial markets and reverberate on the stock market, the party and its international relationships.

“The party would not recover for a generation,” one of the unnamed sources told The Guardian.

Number 10 sources also told The Guardian they are concerned about rumours that Streeting could be planning a “coup” and is just one of several Labour ministers who are “on manoeuvres” to take the leadership if the opportunity arises. However, none of them were likely to move against the prime minister right now.

They said the most likely moment for a leadership challenge would be after the autumn budget – the government’s tax-and-spending review, due in parliament on November 26 – if higher taxes are announced, or after May elections next year if the Labour party performs poorly.

“Keir will not stand aside at this point, for Wes or anybody else,” one source told The Guardian.

On Friday, the UK’s Financial Times cited an unnamed minister who claimed that support for the health secretary was growing following the news of the unsanctioned “briefing”.

Streeting was not the only name mentioned as a potential leadership contender. Both Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood and Energy Secretary and a former leader of the Labour Party, Ed Miliband were named as possible contenders, the sources said.

Politics professor Nicholas Allen, from Royal Holloway University in London, explained that the briefing revealed “genuine concern, at least in some quarters, that Starmer is vulnerable”.

Could a coup against Starmer be successful?

Allen said it would be difficult to achieve a new leadership election because Labour Party rules state that a contender have the support of 20 percent of MPs to be nominated. This would be hard to do with party whips, which enforce a party consensus.

“I don’t know how strong Streeting’s support is,” Allen said. “He probably couldn’t force Starmer out by himself; what would be more likely is a collapse in support within the party, fuelled by low poll ratings and unforced errors (like the briefing), and Starmer deciding to step down or being encouraged to go by a group of senior ministers. At that point, the field would be open. Streeting may or may not be the perceived saviour,” he said.

Who briefed the press?

The British press is speculating that the unofficial briefing may have been organised by Starmer’s chief of staff, Morgan McSweeney, as a tactic designed to put off any ministers thinking about challenging him.

McSweeney, who has been widely credited with helping Starmer to win the July 2024 election, is now facing calls to resign from unnamed members of parliament, according to reports.

However, Starmer appeared not to support such a move on Thursday when he reiterated that he “of course” has complete confidence in his chief of staff.

What do opposition parties say?

Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch was quick to respond, accusing Starmer of losing control of his party during Wednesday’s Prime Minister’s Question Time.

Badenoch called Starmer a “weak prime minister at war with his own cabinet”.

“Two weeks before the budget, isn’t it the case that this prime minister has lost control of government, he’s lost control of his party and lost the trust of the British people,” she said.

Earlier in the debate, Badenoch referred to an interview Streeting gave to the BBC in which he accused Downing Street of having a “toxic culture”, and asked Starmer if his minister was correct.

“Any attack on any member of my cabinet is completely unacceptable,” Starmer said in response.

Meanwhile, the far-right Reform UK party’s head of policy, Zia Yusuf, wrote on X on Thursday that the “terrifying thing about the coup against Starmer is that Labour members will choose his replacement”.

“Their favourite Labour minister is Ed Miliband. Some of the most unhinged people in the country will choose the next Prime Minister,” he added.

Reform’s popularity has risen hugely in the UK since last year’s election.

How does the autumn budget fit into this?

The briefing came just two weeks before Starmer and his chancellor of the exchequer, Rachel Reeves, announced the autumn budget on November 26.

The budget, which outlines the government’s tax-and-spending plans for the next year, has been the subject of intense speculation in recent weeks, as it was widely expected to break one of Labour’s main election pledges: not to increase income taxes.

However, the Financial Times reported on Friday morning that Reeves is now ruling out any rise in income tax amid concerns that it could seriously anger voters and backbench legislators.

Why else is Starmer losing popularity in the UK?

Since winning the election in 2024, the prime minister has received backlash from across the political spectrum, including from Labour voters, over several issues.

According to a YouGov poll in September, if an election were to be called now, the far-right Reform UK would win, leaving the Labour Party as the second-largest party and the former governing party, the Conservatives, in third place.

Allen said the briefing could damage public perception of the Labour party further as it has revealed “a desire by some to engage in tribal fights with senior ministers” and that Starmer “doesn’t do politics very well, either in terms of surrounding himself with reliable people (if he didn’t know) or in terms of political judgement (if he did authorise it)”.

“It merely confirms what most voters probably already think: that the current Labour government and its prime minister aren’t all that good, or at least not significantly better than the Conservative government they voted out less than 18 months ago,” Allen said.

Here are some of the main areas of domestic policy which are causing the popularity of Starmer’s Labour Party to wane.

Migration

The opposition Reform UK party has risen in popularity largely on the back of its calls for stricter migrant control. The key issue is the rapid rise in the numbers of people arriving in small boats across the English Channel from France, particularly in the past year.

In September, Starmer struck a “one-in-one-out” migrant exchange deal with France in an effort to deter people from attempting the Channel crossing. Under the deal, France will accept the return of asylum seekers who crossed to the UK but cannot prove a family connection to the UK.

For each migrant France takes back, the UK will grant asylum to one person who has arrived from France through official channels and who can prove they have family connections in the UK.

But only a handful of migrants have been deported under the scheme so far. Furthermore, on Monday, the Home Office reported that a second migrant had re-entered the UK after being deported to France.

Rise of the far-right

Starmer has faced criticism for his lukewarm response to the rising number of far-right protests across the country.

In September, at least 11,000 people joined a “Unite the Kingdom” march, displaying the St George flag in London.

While Starmer denounced violence against police officers during the protests and argued that the UK was “built on diversity”, the antifascist group, Hope Not Hate, and several MPs have urged the government to take stronger action against the rise of far-right groups.

Critics also say Starmer has not done enough to appeal to people who support Reform, or to address their concerns about migration.

Accidental prison releases

In a major blunder, HMP Wandsworth prison in London wrongly released two offenders in early November, including an Algerian sex offender.

Both men were eventually returned to prison but, in the case of the Algerian offender, only after the man handed himself in. Conservative Party shadow Justice Secretary Robert Jenrick said the mistake revealed “the incompetence of this government”.

Economy

Starmer has been grappling with a low-growth economy since the start of his term in government.

According to new figures from the Office for National Statistics on Thursday, between July and September, the UK’s gross domestic product (GDP) increased by just 0.1 percent in comparison with growth of 0.3 percent between April and July.

On the morning of October 25, as Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces stormed the town of Bara in North Kordofan state, Sadiq Ahmed thought about his two daughters and what would happen to them if he couldn’t protect them.

RSF fighters began raiding homes, looking for loot, as well as women and girls, said Sadiq.

According to the United Nations and Human Rights Watch, the RSF routinely wields rape as a weapon of war and kidnaps women and girls to use as sex slaves.

When fighters came to Sadiq’s house, he gave them everything he owned: money, phones and gold. But he refused to give up his daughters or nieces.

“It was a red line for me. I was prepared to die to [protect my daughters],” Sadiq, 59, told Al Jazeera.

Sadiq was able to convince the RSF fighters – who are fighting the regular army known as the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) – to allow his family and his brother’s family to flee town.

They were among nearly 39,000 people uprooted from the vast Kordofan region due to a sharp uptick in violence between October 26 and November 9, according to the United Nations.

However, not everyone was so lucky. The Sudan’s Doctor’s Network said that at least 38 civilians were killed during the RSF’s capture of Bara, while other local monitors told Al Jazeera that men of fighting age were often accused of “sympathising” with the army and killed.

The next epicentre of conflict

Many of those displaced from Bara ended up with relatives or in open-air camps in North Kordofan’s capital, el-Obeid, a city about 59 kilometres (36 miles) east.

El-Obeid is controlled by the SAF, which has been at war with the RSF since April 2023.

The city is home to the SAF’s strategic airbase and operates as an important buffer to protect Sudan’s capital, Khartoum, according to analysts.

El-Obeid has also absorbed tens of thousands of displaced people seeking relative safety from the RSF, yet the city may not be safe for long.

The RSF is redeploying thousands of fighters to North Kordofan after capturing North Darfur’s capital el-Fasher last month, according to a leaked RSF document obtained by Darfur24, a local news outlet following developments in the region.

The nomadic “Arab” fighters that mostly make up the RSF’s ranks besieged el-Fasher for more than 500 days before carrying out a campaign of violence against sedentary “non-Arab” tribes, in what many observers have termed a genocide.

Relief workers, analysts and local monitors fear the RSF could subject civilians in el-Obeid to a similar fate.

“My forecast has always been that el-Obeid will be under [RSF] siege by Thanksgiving,” said Nathaniel Raymond, the executive director of the Yale Humanitarian Lab that provides satellite imagery analysis of the war in Sudan, referring to the holiday in the United States that falls on November 27 this year.

Raymond added that the RSF appears to be trying to first capture the town of Babanusa in West Kordofan, which it is currently besieging. That way, it can then use the town to support an all-out assault on el-Obeid.

The RSF will likely overburden SAF in Babanusa by launching its wide arsenal of drones from the airport in el-Fasher, Raymond explained.

“Babanusa is really the last line of defence [for the SAF] against the coming onslaught against el-Obeid,” he told Al Jazeera.

Looming battle

As the battlefield shifts to Kordofan, the SAF is reportedly stepping up recruitment and deploying thousands of newly recruited civilians turned fighters – known as the mobilised or “mustanfereen” – to el-Obeid.

SAF recently opened up a training camp in North Kordofan to recruit young men eager to fight against the RSF after the fall of el-Fasher, according to Mohamed el-Fatih, a Sudanese journalist and analyst covering developments across the country.

Fighters from SAF-aligned armed groups – known as the Joint Forces, which were instrumental in holding off the RSF in el-Fasher for a year and a half – are also present in el-Obeid, according to a local relief worker who requested anonymity due to the tense security environment.

He said that most civilians don’t leave their homes or displacement camps after sundown out of fear of being robbed by armed men on the street.

Other civilians are reportedly fleeing to neighbouring White Nile state, which connects to the only road out of el-Fasher, according to local monitors.

Hafiz Mohamed, the director of local human rights organisation Justice Africa, told Al Jazeera that more people are trying to get out before the RSF besieges the city.

“Some people are leaving … because they don’t have faith that el-Obeid won’t eventually fall. They don’t have confidence in the army,” he said.

Mohammed Ibrahim, a civil servant with the SAF-backed Port Sudan government who works for the economic ministry in el-Obeid, confirmed that civilians were very scared of an RSF attack after the group took el-Fasher.

Many people, he noted, were considering fleeing further north after a series of incriminating videos showed RSF fighters perpetrating mass killings and other atrocities in North Darfur.

“The SAF has sent reinforcements all around the city … and people are calmer now … everyone is ready to confront the RSF if they attack,” he said.

Outgunned and outmanned?

Despite the SAF’s recruitment drive to defend el-Obeid, it still lacks the arsenal and manpower to fortify el-Obeid, according to Raymond, the researcher from Yale.

He said the SAF typically relies on close air cover, either from warplanes or helicopters, to assist ground infantry. However, over the past year, the RSF has acquired man-portable air-defence systems (MANPADS), which are a significant threat to low-flying aircraft.

The RSF has had MANPADS since at least 2024, and they have proven instrumental in combating SAF’s airpower.

“SAF has one play right now and that’s to curl up and prepare for siege mode … that’s because they no longer have [air supremacy], which was their biggest advantage,” Raymond told Al Jazeera.

Regional states backing the SAF, such as Turkiye and Egypt, could step up arms shipments to try and level the playing field.

The former is reported to have sold the SAF its highly regarded Bayraktar drones throughout the war – weapons that helped it recapture Gezira State and the capital Khartoum from the RSF earlier this year.

In addition, the SAF has recently requested access to Egypt’s air-defence systems to shoot down RSF drones.

However, Egypt is concerned about getting directly involved in the war, according to an Africa Intelligence report, which specialises in obtaining geopolitical and business intelligence.

Their analysis was based on open-source intelligence that tracked Egyptian and Turkish cargo flights to Port Sudan, as well as on defence sources, which claim to have intimate knowledge of the military planning of both countries.

Yet, even if the SAF acquires new upgraded weaponry from its allies, it still may not be enough to hold on to el-Obeid, said Raymond.

“These weapons are not a panacea,” he told Al Jazeera.

International NGOs Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have decried a sharp decline in civil liberties and a pervading “injustice” in Tunisia since President Kais Saied came to power in 2019, as authorities escalate their crackdown on the opposition, activists and foreign nongovernmental organisations.

“Tunisian authorities have increasingly escalated their crackdown on human rights defenders and independent non-governmental organizations (NGOs) through arbitrary arrests, detention, asset freezes, bank restrictions and court-ordered suspensions, all under the pretext of fighting ‘suspicious’ foreign funding and shielding ‘national interests’,” Amnesty International said in a statement on Friday.

Tunisia’s crackdown on civil society has reached an unprecedented level, according to Amnesty, as six NGO workers and human rights defenders from the Tunisian Council for Refugees are “being criminally prosecuted on charges solely related to their legitimate work supporting refugees and asylum seekers”. The trial’s opening session, initially scheduled for October 16, has been adjourned to November 24.

It is a long way from the heady days of the Arab Spring in 2011, when Tunisia appeared to be the only country to emerge relatively unscathed in the initial years that followed with a bona fide democracy in full flow.

A sweeping power grab in July 2021, when he dissolved parliament and expanded executive power so he could rule by decree, saw Saied jail many of his critics. That decree was later enshrined in a new constitution – ratified by a widely boycotted 2022 referendum – while media figures and lawyers critical of Saied have also been prosecuted and detained under a harsh “fake news” law enacted the same year.

‘Entire case has been a masquerade’

Within the past four months, Tunisia has temporarily suspended the activities of at least 14 Tunisian and international NGOs, said Amnesty, including the Tunisian Association of Democratic Women and the World Organisation against Torture.

Individuals have been similarly targeted.

Human Rights Watch said in a statement on Friday that Tunis’s Court of Appeal will hear on November 17 the appeal of more than 30 people “unjustly sentenced to heavy prison terms in a politically motivated ‘Conspiracy Case’” mass trial in April.

“Four of those detained are on hunger strike, including one who, according to his lawyers, was subjected to physical violence in prison on November 11.”

The defendants were charged with plotting to destabilise the country under various articles of Tunisia’s Penal Code and the 2015 Counterterrorism Law. Human Rights Watch, which reviewed the judicial documents, said the charges are unfounded and lack credible evidence. The NGO has called on the court to immediately overturn the convictions and ensure the release of all those detained.

“This entire case has been a masquerade, from the baseless accusations to a judicial process devoid of fair trial guarantees,” said Bassam Khawaja, deputy Middle East and North Africa director at Human Rights Watch. “The authorities should end this judicial farce, which is part of a wider crackdown on any form of criticism or dissent.”

The 37 people detained include opponents of Saied, lawyers, activists and researchers. Their prison terms range from four to 66 years for “conspiracy against state security” and terrorism offences.

Jawhar Ben Mbarek – cofounder of Tunisia’s main opposition alliance, the National Salvation Front – began a hunger strike on October 29 to protest his arbitrary detention.

Ben Mbarek was sentenced to 18 years behind bars on charges of “conspiracy against state security” and “belonging to a terrorist group”.

The leaders of Tunisia’s major opposition parties have gone on hunger strikes in solidarity with Ben Mbarek.

Among them is Issam Chebbi, leader of the centrist Republican Party, who is also being detained after being convicted in the April mass trial.

Rached Ghannouchi, the 84-year-old leader of the Ennahdha party, who is also serving a hefty prison sentence, announced he was joining the hunger protest.

Ghannouchi was convicted in July of “conspiring against state security”, adding to previous convictions, including money laundering, for which he has been sentenced to more than 20 years in prison and for which he claims innocence.

“Tunisia’s international partners should speak up against this flagrant injustice and assault on the rule of law,” Khawaja said. “They should urge Tunisian authorities to cease their crackdown, overturn these convictions, and guarantee fair trials.”