Labour latest: Backbench MPs split over Wes Streeting resignation

Wes Streeting has quit as Health Secretary, paving the way for a potential leadership challenge against Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer.

In his resignation letter, Mr Streeting criticised the ‘drift’ at the top of Government and told the Prime Minister it is ‘clear’ he will not lead Labour into the next election.

Mr Streeting’s resignation follows days of turmoil in which calls have mounted for the Prime Minister to step down in the wake of Labour’s election mauling last week.

Former Manchester United and England footballer Gary Neville has been touted as a possible Labour candidate to succeed Andy Burnham as Greater Manchester Mayor, Sky News is reporting.

According to the report, it is unclear whether Neville has been approached about the mayoralty which could become available if Mr Burnham runs for re-election as an MP.

Neville, a Sky Sports pundit, endorsed Labour in the 2019 general election and joined he party three years later. He is yet to comment on the speculation.

An ally of Sir Keir Starmer has claimed Wes Streeting ‘never had the numbers’ to formally challenge the Prime Minister and his call for a broad contest is ‘guff’.

Speaking to BBC reporter Nicholas Watt, the Starmer loyalist said Mr Streeting had failed the most basic rule of politics.

They said:

He can’t count. He never had the numbers. We counted and counted and counted and recounted. The highest number we got for Wes was 44. We could not see how he could get higher than that.

We knew that, Wes will have known that. So all that stuff from Wes about how he is resigning in the party interest to allow a broad debate is a load of old guff. He never had the numbers.

Labour backbencher Clive Lewis says the chaos resulting from the Labour leadership saga will only stop when Andy Burnham is allowed back into Parliament.

In November, Mr Lewis told the BBC he was willing to step down from his Norwich South seat to allow Burnham to return to the Commons and put ‘country before party, party before personal ambition’.

Mr Burnham said he appreciated the support but was focused on his job in Manchester.

The Cabinet is ‘behind the Prime Minister’ despite Wes Streeting’s resignation as Health Secretary, Bridget Phillipson has said.

The Education Secretary told reporters:

What I can say very clearly is that the Prime Minister has my full support, continues to have my full support, and he has the Cabinet behind him in the important job that he’s doing, leading our country at a very unstable time.

Asked whether she was ‘absolutely certain’ her Cabinet colleagues backed Sir Keir Starmer, Ms Phillipson said: ‘The Cabinet are behind the Prime Minister. I am behind the Prime Minister.’

Wes Streeting has carried out ‘a hit job’ on Sir Keir Starmer and ‘nobody is running the country’, Kemi Badenoch has said.

In a video posted to her social media, the Conservative leader said:

I told Wes Streeting to do his job. Instead he has done a hit job on the Prime Minister.

The Labour Party has now descended into civil war, and here’s the thing, while they are sharpening their knives and plotting in the bars of Westminster, nobody is running the country.

Wes Streeting’s resignation marks a chance for Labour to ‘draw a line’ under leadership debate, Bridget Phillipson has said.

As the first Cabinet minister to respond to his departure, the Education Secretary told reporters:

The Prime Minister has my full support and I’m really sorry to see Wes go. He has been a brilliant health secretary. He’s done a fantastic job and we saw that today, with the NHS waiting list numbers that are really encouraging and what people want to see.

But I fundamentally disagree with the position he’s taken. I’m sad that he’s gone, but I think this is now a chance for us to pause, take a breath as a party and try and draw a line under all of this.

Allies of Wes Streeting say the former Health Secretary chose not to trigger a leadership contest because it would be deemed ‘illegitimate’ if Andy Burnham was excluded, The Times is reporting.

Supporters say he had the numbers to launch a formal challenge but decided against it.

According to The Times, Mr Streeting was also aware a leadership contest could have resulted in a ‘wave of resignations’ and ‘disembowelled the government’.

It also states Mr Streeting told Sir Keir Starmer he lost confidence in his leadership during a 16-minute meeting in Downing Street ahead of the King’s Speech.

Wes Streeting’s suggestion that the Labour leadership has left the country not knowing what it stands for is unfair, a minister said.

In his letter, Mr Streeting said mistakes made by the Government has left the country ‘not knowing who we are or what we really stand for’.

Asked whether that characterisation was unfair, skills minister Baroness Jacqui Smith told BBC Radio 4’s World At One programme:

Yes, I think it is. There is more that we need to do, to both communicate what we’ve already done, to speed up what we need to do to change this country, and to tell a story about the country that we’re going to be.

But just on this point about two years, you know, I’ve been around for a while. I went through, for example, the change of leadership from Tony Blair to Gordon Brown.

Let’s remind ourselves that that was after Tony Blair had served 10 years and the Labour government had been in place for 10 years.

I don’t think I can remember a Labour government who, after two years, had delivered everything that we would have wanted them to do.

Sir Keir Starmer could win a leadership contest, a former minister who called for a challenge from the Cabinet has said.

Catherine West told BBC Radio 4’s The World At One programme:

What I would like to see is the honest conversation and people coming forward, including the Prime Minister if he is going to be a candidate in this particular race.

Because, of course, many of us like Keir very much as a person. He has got excellent credentials on the international stage and he could well win a competition if he put his name forward.

She added:

If Keir Starmer decides he has got the bottle and he can come and fight – fight as if he is fighting for the working people of this country – then he could beat the others, because he is a very bright man.

Wes Streeting pointed to new NHS figures in his resignation letter which were published just hours before he left the Government.

Earlier this morning it was reported the NHS has seen the biggest cut in waiting lists in a single month in 17 years only if the period of the Covid-19 pandemic is excluded.

An estimated 7.11 million treatments were waiting to be carried out at the end of March this year, down 110,000 from 7.22 million at the end of February.

In his letter, Mr Streeting said:

Today’s figures confirm that we surpassed our waiting times target despite strikes, and that waiting lists fell by 110,000 in March – the biggest monthly drop outside of Covid since 2008 – meaning that we are on track to achieve the fastest improvement in NHS waiting times in history.

A Labour backbencher has told the Press Association Wes Streeting has ‘screwed himself good and proper’ following his resignation.

The unnamed MP said his resignation letter ‘reads like he has no numbers’ to make a leadership challenge himself.

Allies of Sir Keir Starmer and Wes Streeting had been at odds over claims the former Health Secretary has the support of 81 MPs to trigger a leadership contest.