Wes Streeting has announced that he intends to stand in a Labour leadership race if one is triggered to replace Sir Keir Starmer. The Labour civil war continues after an eventful week that saw several ministers resign to pile on pressure on the Prime Minister. Streeting quit as the Health Secretary on Thursday, but he did not launch a direct leadership challenge to Sir Keir as was predicted. He welcomed Andy Burnham’s bombshell announcement to stand in the Makerfield by-election to try to get back into Parliament.
The former Health Secretary said: ‘We need a proper contest with the best candidates on the field, and I’ll be standing.’
Streeting insisted that Burnham, who is expected to enter any future leadership contest if he wins in Makerfield, needs to be given a chance to run in the by-election. He told the Progress think tank conference: ‘Firstly, I do have support in the parliamentary party, but this week I also had a choice. We could have rushed straight into a leadership contest, knowing not all of the candidates would be on the pitch, that Andy Burnham was about to stand in a by-election, and that if we had rushed ahead without giving Andy a chance to stand, the new leader, whether it was me or anyone else, would lack the legitimacy, and so we would end up extending instability and uncertainty. ‘That might have been the self-interested thing to do for candidates who are in Parliament presently, but it wasn’t in the party’s interest and wasn’t in the national interest.’
Despite the possibility of coming face-to-face with Burnham in a leadership contest, Streeting said he will be campaigning for him. He said he will be in Makerfield, a ward southwest of Wigan in Greater Manchester, going ‘door-knocking day after day to help him get elected.’
Earlier, Streeting said Labour is risking becoming ‘handmaidens of Nigel Farage and the breakup of the United Kingdom’ unless it changes course. Sir Keir has been defiant despite mounting pressure calling on him to resign this week in the wake of the disastrous local election result for Labour. A new poll by YouGov found that 38% of people believe it is ‘very unlikely’ Sir Keir will still be the Prime Minister at the end of 2026.
