John Healey’s resignation hasn’t just rocked Keir Starmer, it’s nuked him. For months, a debate has raged inside and outside government about whether Sir Keir has the authority and courage to face down his party – and Chancellor – and boost Britain’s defences at a time of unique global peril.
Now that debate has ended. ‘You have been unable, and the Treasury has been unwilling, to commit the resources that the nation needs to defend the country at this time of rising threats’, the outgoing Defence Secretary has confirmed.
Every criticism from Kemi Badenoch, our Nato allies and our beleaguered military chiefs. Every one of them has been shown to be correct. The primary responsibility of any Prime Minister is the defence of the realm. And what has now been proven beyond a shadow of doubt is that Keir Starmer is no longer able to fulfil that most basic obligation to King and country.
Over the past couple of weeks, Starmer was desperately trying to convince Rachel Reeves to sign off for the additional spending the Armed Forces require. She refused.
He then turned to members of his Cabinet, begging them to accept significant cuts in their own budgets to find the necessary savings for the defence uplift. They refused as well.
In fact, some of them basically laughed in his face.
As one minister told me: ‘He honestly thinks we’re all going to agree to find massive new cuts so he can boost defence spending, pose as some great war leader, and save his premiership. It’s utterly delusional.’
It’s dangerously delusional. John Healey’s resignation may have sent shock waves through Westminster. But the reality is it told us nothing we didn’t already know about the parlous state of our Armed Forces.
A debate has been raging about whether Sir Keir can produce the resources to boost Britain’s defences – but with John Healey’s resignation, that debate has ended, writes Dan Hodges
John Healey seems to be laying the groundwork for a challenge to Starmer, writes Hodges (pictured together visiting British soldiers at a Nato base in Estonia, near the Russian border)
Healey has kept his counsel during the haggling with the Treasury. But allies say he has been privately warning for some time that the British military is simply not in a position to confront the myriad, multi-front threats facing it.
That has been thrown into especially sharp relief by the Iran crisis. Although Healey held the government line publicly, he was reportedly shocked earlier this year when it emerged the Royal Navy did not have a single deployable warship for the protection of Cyprus. One ally told me: ‘When the Navy chiefs told him there were no ships available, he couldn’t believe it.’
Healey’s resignation also speaks volumes about the state of internal Labour politics. I’m told he has become increasingly frustrated at the Parliamentary Labour Party’s inability to face up to what he sees is the existential nature of the defence crisis – and with Keir Starmer’s failure to shake some sense into his colleagues.
At Prime Minister’s Questions on Wednesday, Kemi Badenoch lambasted Starmer for leading a party that cared more about welfare than national defence. As one of Healey’s colleagues told me: ‘John’s problem was he was the minister responsible for rebutting Bedenoch’s attacks. But he finally realised he couldn’t, because he knows what she’s saying is true.’
It’s not simply that Labour MPs are being driven by old-style, hard-Left unilateralism and pacifism. With the implosion of Starmer’s authority, and the simultaneous collapse of their position in the polls, an ‘every man and woman for themselves’ attitude has enveloped the backbenches. The result is that MPs are not interested in more tanks and drones to see off a future threat from Vladimir Putin, but want every available penny channelled into more teachers, police and nurses.
As one MP said, ‘what keeps them awake at night is the risk of Nigel Farage, not the risk of Russian paratroopers’.
This is why Rachel Reeves has been prepared to reject Starmer’s increasingly desperate pleas to find the extra cash the service chiefs are demanding. As another minister said: ‘She knows Keir will be gone soon. So she’s shoring up her position. She’ll say to the backbenchers, “Keir wanted me to cut hospital beds from your constituency to pay for more bombs. And I stopped him”.’
For Starmer and his small group of increasingly fanatical advisers, the focus on defence is simply an attempt to find some way to stave off his inevitable political demise. Their latest hare-brained strategy was to try to paint him as the saviour of the West, while portraying his perceived rivals – Andy Burnham and Wes Streeting – as callow dilettantes unsuited to dangerous times.
What they didn’t realise was the majority of the Cabinet are now united in wanting him to name a day for his departure, and many of them are preparing their own leadership bids.
John Healey’s resignation has taken many people by surprise. But the fact that he has been laying the groundwork for a potential challenge to Starmer has been an open secret for months. As one Labour grandee told me back in February: ‘John’s getting ready. He’s spending a lot of time in the bars and the tea-rooms. He’s pressing the flesh. Watch: He’s going to go for it.’
He has. Yes, Healey’s resignation was principled. But it also gives him the opportunity to position himself as the statesman in Labour’s upcoming leadership race. Respected on all wings of the party, experienced, and the recent holder of one of the major offices of state, he will be a serious challenger, or potential kingmaker.
Nor will he be alone. It’s now only a matter of time before other ministers begin to decouple themselves from Starmer.
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The Prime Minister’s recent bombastic pledges to fight any leadership contest triggered by Andy Burnham’s expected victory in Makerfield were designed to scare off any other potential contenders. John Healey has called his bluff. And he will not be the last to do so.
Keir Starmer’s leadership was already dead. But what Healey’s resignation underlines is how imperative it now is for Starmer to be removed from office without delay. Britain’s enemies are watching. And what they can see is a defenceless, rudderless nation that is drifting to catastrophe – both domestically and internationally – because it no longer has a Prime Minister capable of fulfilling even the most basic functions of his office.
I am told by people close to Keir Starmer that he does actually recognise that his time in office is nearly up. And that what he has been waiting for is a window where he can set out a timetable for his departure on his own terms.
But he keeps passing up every reasonable opportunity to do that. He could have gone when the full scale of the Mandelson scandal became apparent. He could have stepped down when British people so unequivocally rejected him at last month’s local elections.
Instead, he has allowed himself to be captured by small cabal of crazed advisers who are urging him to mount an utterly futile fight to the death. According to one minister I spoke to: ‘They were at it again over the weekend at Chequers. Plotting how to stick it to Andy and Wes. It’s lunacy. They’re like those Japanese soldiers who didn’t realise the war was over.’
With the departure of his Defence Secretary, Keir Starmer’s war is indeed over. John Healey has resigned. For the good of the nation, the Prime Minister’s resignation must swiftly follow.
