Wes Streeting: ‘I’ll be running for Labour leadership’ — as it happened
What you need to know
Wes Streeting has confirmed he will run in the next Labour leadership election and called for a “proper contest”
The former health secretary, who quit the cabinet on Thursday, said Britain should return to the European Union “one day”
Andy Burnham, his likely rival, has said Labour must be “saved” and reclaimed for working-class people
Follow updates throughout the day on Times Radio
Billionaires demand end to Labour infighting
Labour’s “self-indulgent” infighting is causing serious damage to the economy, according to many of the business leaders featured in this year’s Sunday Times Rich List.
Billionaires called for stability and urged politicians to “end the chaos” of unseating prime ministers every few years.
The 38th edition of the Sunday Times wealth rankings, published this weekend, underlines the vulnerable state of the UK economy. The combined fortunes of Britain’s 350 wealthiest individuals and families climbed by a 1.4 per cent to £784 billion, a rise which is well below CPI inflation, currently 3.3 per cent.
Read in full — ‘Self-indulgent’ Labour spats hurt UK, say Rich List billionaires
‘Hard bastard’ PM won’t go quietly
Why doesn’t he just quit? That’s the question I keep hearing. Sir Keir Starmer’s premiership has become a rather long and dark night of the soul. He’s desperately unpopular in the country. Much of his own party has turned on him. Why doesn’t he just accept that it hasn’t worked and set a timetable for an orderly transition?
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It’s a question several cabinet members, including Ed Miliband and Shabana Mahmood, may also have asked themselves in recent days, as they’ve attempted to outline an exit path for the prime minister. Many backbench MPs are furious at Starmer for allowing matters to reach this bitter point.
Why has he done so? Some obvious answers spring to mind. A sense of duty and self-belief, pride, stubbornness, a government jet: it’s easy to see why even a beleaguered leader wouldn’t just give up power. This is an otherwise private man who shed tears on television, in front of Piers Morgan, in his quest for the throne. You don’t walk away easily from that.
Read in full — Josh Glancy: Keir Starmer is fighting on just so his rivals don’t win
Leadership to be hot topic for media rounds
Lisa Nandy, the culture secretary, and Kemi Badenoch, the Tory leader, are both due to give media interviews on Sunday, including on Times Radio.
They will no doubt be asked for their reaction to another day of manoeuvring for the Labour leadership after Wes Streeting indicated he would stand in any contest.
It follows confirmation that Andy Burnham will be allowed to seek selection as candidate for the Makerfield by-election, which is expected to take place on June 18.
Brexit is a distraction, say Tories
Wes Streeting’s call for Britain to rejoin the EU has prompted the Conservatives to accuse Labour of “yet another distraction”.
Kevin Hollinrake, the Tory party chairman, said: “Whilst Labour relitigate Brexit, Britain is not being governed.
“This is yet another distraction from the day job at a time when families and businesses want the government focused on the cost of living, the economy, public services and Britain’s defence.
“But there is an alternative. Kemi Badenoch and the Conservatives have a clear plan in our alternative King’s Speech to build a stronger economy and a stronger country.”
Cabinet minister campaigns for Burnham
Lisa Nandy, the culture secretary, has become the first cabinet minister to campaign with Andy Burnham in Makerfield.
Nandy, whose constituency is in neighbouring Wigan, joined the Greater Manchester mayor as he canvassed for the by-election expected to be held on June 18.
Lib Dem leader responds
Sir Ed Davey has criticised what he called “Wes Streeting’s audition for PM”.
The Liberal Democrat leader said the Labour leadership contender “must offer something more than the same failed red lines as Keir Starmer … We can’t solve the cost of living crisis without repairing the damage done by the Conservatives’ botched Brexit deal. Starting by negotiating a customs union with the EU.”
Reform ‘favourites’ to win Makerfield
Reform UK are favourites to win the Makerfield by-election, according to one of Britain’s top pollsters.
Sir John Curtice, professor of politics at Strathclyde University, wrote for GB News: “Reform won every single council seat [in the area] that was up for grabs. In truth, the party could hardly have hoped for a by-election to arise in so promising a seat as this.”
It would be in their interest to put forward a high-quality, high-profile figure, Curtice told TalkTV earlier. “This is clearly much, much more propitious territory for Reform than Gorton & Denton was, and conversely much more difficult for Mr Burnham. Frankly, we start off with Reform as the favourite.”
Burnham was blocked from standing in the Gorton & Denton by-election in February, which was won by the Green candidate Hannah Spencer.
Burnham: There is a ‘long-term case’ for Rejoin
Burnham has declined to rule out promising to rejoin the EU, saying: “In the long term there is a case for that.”
However, he added in an interview with ITV: “I’m not advocating that in this by-election. In fact, what I am saying is focus now domestically. Britain has got to focus very much on the here and now and the issues that are affecting people.”
Almost 65 per cent of voters in Makerfield, where Burnham will compete in a by-election, voted Leave in the 2016 referendum.
Farage ‘throws everything’ at by-election
Burnham’s biggest challenge in Makerfield will be beating the Reform UK candidate — a fact that has not escaped Nigel Farage, who has promised to “throw everything” at the contest and posted a picture of supporters campaigning there today.
The incumbent Labour MP, Josh Simons, won with 45 per cent of votes at the last election but Reform’s 32 per cent share earned them second place. It has been a safe Labour seat since its creation in 1983, but Reform swept the board in council elections on May 7.
‘No leadership race without Burnham’
The first minister to resign from Sir Keir Starmer’s government after the local elections said she was “confident” the Labour Party could “step up to the challenge that the country has set us”.
Miatta Fahnbulleh, the MP for Peckham who was a communities minister, has declined to say who she would back in a leadership contest, but told the BBC’s Political Thinking with Nick Robinson podcast of Burnham: “I don’t think you can have a leadership race without him in because … he commands so much support within the Labour movement.”
Fahnbulleh said the Greater Manchester mayor’s economic strategy “could be translated to the national level”. She also described two other potential contenders, Ed Miliband and Angela Rayner, as “brilliant”.
This is the first stage, Burnham says
Burnham has said that becoming an MP would be the “first stage” in his fight to change Labour.
“I’ve indicated that always in my role as mayor, that one day I will seek to return to Westminster,” he told ITV News. “So I’m saying that now and I don’t know whether people here feel that that’s something they want to support, but that is the first stage and I’m not getting ahead of myself.”
Burnham added that it was “for others to decide” whether he should be the frontrunner to replace Starmer, but that he wanted “this by-election to be a change moment for British politics”.
Is welfare what doomed Keir Starmer?
Britain’s growing welfare spend has dominated Sir Keir Starmer’s premiership more than any other issue — and may have instigated its demise (Tom Calver writes).
If the party’s leading lights would rather Labour’s stint in power be remembered for freezing prescription charges and rail fares, voters have other ideas. Polling by More in Common has found that some of Labour’s most memorable policies have been related to welfare and work.
In fact, despite all the twists and turns of the past two years, it is the party’s cut to winter fuel allowance within weeks of taking office that stands out among voters as being both despised and memorable:
Read in full: The Labour Achilles’ heel?
No vote has yet been called
Streeting’s declaration that he would stand to replace Sir Keir Starmer has not triggered a Labour leadership election. That would require 20 per cent of the parliamentary Labour Party nominating a specific candidate to challenge the leader. At present, this equates to 81 MPs.
Any sitting MP can try to gather the names, which is why Andy Burnham’s allies instigated a by-election in Makerfield to bring him back to parliament and give him a shot at the leadership.
Streeting claimed he had “support in the parliamentary party” but that he made a “choice” not to begin the formal campaign before his biggest rival had the chance to enter.
‘They think they can do what they like’
The shadow justice secretary has suggested Wes Streeting’s comments on Brexit were anti-democratic. Nick Timothy, the Conservative MP for West Suffolk, posted on X in response to Streeting’s call to rejoin the EU: “They think they can do what they like without a mandate. The problem isn’t Starmer. It’s Labour.”
‘We arrived in government underprepared’
Streeting’s speech at the Labour-affiliated Progress conference called for “a battle of ideas, not personalities”. He added: “Change begins with an argument. You don’t make progress without one.”
The former health secretary, who resigned from cabinet on Thursday, said the Labour Party had lacked a “debate” about its identity since before Jeremy Corbyn was leader.
“Corbyn’s leadership was marred by factionalism,” he said. “The moral emergency of antisemitism in our party left little room for intellectual renewal or policy debate on the centre left.
“We then had a dishonest leadership contest, followed by an over-cautiousness in opposition. Interesting policy ideas couldn’t be floated because we were too afraid of what the Tories might say, so we said nothing. As a result, we arrived in government underprepared in too many areas and lacking clarity of vision and direction.”
Brexit backlash within Labour ranks
Streeting is facing a Labour backlash after suggesting Britain should rejoin the European Union.
Lord Glasman, a peer and the founder of the Blue Labour pressure group, told The Telegraph that the former health secretary needed to “wake up and recognise that we’re in a new era … I know that Wes Streeting is a Prince fan and he’s still dancing like it’s 1999.”
Jon Trickett, the MP for Normanton & Hemsworth, said: “We’re going to have to a serious discussion about the country’s future, but don’t start off the discussion by saying what the outcome will be. In my area it was 60 per cent-odd Leave, so we need to honour the democratic decision.
“There are ways of moving forward to improve our trading position but that [calling to rejoin] is a mistake. It gives the impression that Britain’s no longer good enough to make its way in the world except by leaning on its neighbours.”
Wes Streeting in his own words: ‘Nan gave birth in handcuffs’
In 2023 the man who wants to be prime minister published his remarkable life story, from family pain to the Ann Widdecombe moment that inspired him to enter politics. Read an extract in The Sunday Times
Burnham: Labour must be reclaimed
Andy Burnham said Labour must be “saved” as he called for services such as transport and energy to be brought under public control.
“We’ve got to see this as a moment to reclaim the Labour Party, to save it from where it’s been,” he told the BBC. “We can’t just carry on as we are. We need to fix politics, to fix the economy, get the basics back under public control so that people can afford their rent, energy bills. I want Labour solidly to be the party of working-class people … and that requires a lot of change.”
Backing Burnham and praising Starmer
Streeting restated his backing for Andy Burnham in the Makerfield by-election, which is due to take place on June 18. “If anyone can win that by-election, Andy Burnham can,” he said.
He also praised Starmer as “someone of enormous decency”, while refusing to speculate on the prime minister’s future. “Whatever the coming weeks and months hold, we should never forget that at the last general election he led us to a victory that in 2019 people thought was impossible,” Streeting said.
Streeting is less popular with the public than several other big Labour figures, including his possible leadership rivals Andy Burnham and Angela Rayner.
A YouGov poll published on Thursday suggested that only 16 per cent of the public held a positive opinion of the former health secretary.
Call to rejoin EU ‘lazy and unoriginal’
Streeting’s intervention has been criticised by some Labour figures.
A party source said: “Politicians across the political spectrum have spent the best part of the last decade banging on about a body which doesn’t care about us, instead of cracking on and fixing all the other problems we face. It’s intellectually lazy and strikingly unoriginal. To his credit the PM gets this and has rejected the old in-out arguments.”
Another Labour source said Britain was “crying out for a leader who is strong enough to reject comfortable ideological policies, and yet Wes has just put his weight behind a Rejoin platform which would only serve to divide Britain once again. Reaching for a polemic debate most people gave up on ten years ago doesn’t scream generational talent.”
Rishi Sunak: This can’t be a personality contest
Labour leadership candidates should treat any contest as a chance to show what they would actually do should they become prime minister — starting with the economy, our columnist writes.
Read in full: Unelected PMs must lay out their beliefs. I should know
Analysis: Streeting hits two rivals at once
Wes Streeting went significantly further than Sir Keir Starmer in his comments about rejoining the EU.
The prime minister has sought to place closer relations with the bloc at the heart of his reset after a disastrous set of local elections. Starmer has implied that the “platform” for this closer relationship would be outlined at the next summit between Britain and the EU this summer.
Streeting’s call to rejoin “one day” will be popular with Labour members. It will also be seen as a challenge to Burnham, who has previously said he would support rejoining the EU but who hopes to be Labour’s candidate in Makerfield, a constituency that voted to Leave in 2016.
‘I know how to win’
Streeting told the conference he knew how to win the next general election. He said: “I know how to win whether our opponents position themselves to our right, or whether they position themselves to our left.
“And my warning to the party is: don’t get dragged off by the siren voices. You say to win the next general election, we need to try and out-Reform Reform or out-Green the Greens. We will win the next general election by being Labour.”
Delay to leadership bid gives Burnham time
Streeting claimed he had enough support to trigger a leadership contest but had chosen to wait until Andy Burnham was given the chance to stand in a 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.”
‘We risk being Farage’s handmaidens’
Streeting: “The voters did more than send Labour a message last week, they issued a warning: that unless we change course, we risk being the handmaidens of Nigel Farage and the breakup of the United Kingdom.”
Last week Labour lost 1,498 council seats in England, many of them to Farage’s Reform UK, as well as losing control of the Senedd in Wales.
Wes Streeting has confirmed he will run for the Labour leadership and called for Britain to rejoin the European Union.
In his first speech since resigning as health secretary, Streeting said: “We need a proper contest with the best candidates on the field, and I’ll be standing.”
He described Brexit as a “catastrophic mistake”, adding: “The Vote Leave campaign deluded itself into thinking that the UK could forge a global free trade nirvana, as though we still had the East India Company at our disposal.”
He added: “We need a new special relationship with the EU because Britain’s future lies with Europe, and one day back in the European Union.”