Wes Streeting is poised to resign as health secretary to force a leadership election against Sir Keir Starmer as the crisis within the Labour Party deepens.
The Independent first revealed on Monday that Mr Streeting was expected to launch a leadership bid as his supporters led the way in declaring no confidence in the prime minister.
A defiant Sir Keir has told his remaining supporters he will fight any challenge, but it is now understood that as many as five other ministers, all allies of Mr Streeting, are on a resignation watchlist to deliver a further blow to their embattled leader, joining the four who quit on Tuesday.
One Starmer loyalist minister told The Independent: “They [Mr Streeting and his supporters] will want to hit as hard as possible. There will definitely be other ministers resigning with him.”
Supporters of defence minister Al Carns, who is thought to be eyeing his own leadership bid, suggested he may quit if the health secretary goes and declares for the contest.
Along with Mr Streeting, supporters of energy secretary Ed Miliband, who was defeated as Labour leader in 2015, say he now has the numbers to launch a bid, while former deputy prime minister Angela Rayner could also challenge, despite facing questions over her tax affairs.
There were also fresh reports that Greater Manchester mayor Andy Burnham may have found a seat to run in with the hope he could return as a potential leadership candidate.
With fevered speculation across Westminster overshadowing the King’s Speech and State Opening of Parliament, there were also suggestions, denied by Downing Street, that Mr Streeting had been pulled from the morning broadcast round. According to his office over the weekend, he was due to do some interviews regarding NHS data being published on Thursday.
But despite the continued undermining of Sir Keir’s government, Downing Street insisted that the prime minister has “full confidence” in his health secretary. It came after the two had a Wednesday morning meeting at No 10, where Mr Streeting was expected to demand the PM explain how he would get Labour “out of this mess”, but it ended after just 16 minutes.
Mr Streeting, meanwhile, did not dampen speculation of a leadership bid, with a post on X (formerly Twitter), failing to deny briefings that he was about to quit the government.
He said: “Under Labour, NHS waiting lists are falling, ambulances are arriving faster, there are more GPs, and higher patient satisfaction.
“Lots done, lots to do. The Health Bill will boost the impact of our investment and modernisation: cutting bureaucracy to invest in patient care.”
However, another minister loyal to Sir Keir speculated that if Mr Streeting “bottles out again” and fails to resign, “it will be the end of his political career”.
In a sign of the problems that Mr Streeting could face in any leadership race, former shadow chancellor John McDonnell posted on X a reminder that the health secretary was an ally of the disgraced former peer Peter Mandelson, Sir Keir’s sacked ex-chief of staff Morgan McSweeney and the controversial thinktank Labour Together, which has been accused of smearing Labour politicians and journalists.
He said: “Just a thought. Wes Streeting owes his political status to the support he’s received over [the] years from Peter Mandelson and Morgan McSweeney at Labour Together. He wouldn’t make a move against Keir Starmer without Mandelson’s say-so. So look on this as Mandelson’s and Morgan’s revenge.”
In exchanges in the Commons after the King’s Speech, Tory leader Kemi Badenoch mocked Sir Keir for being “in office but not in power”.
Turning to Mr Streeting, she questioned if he had “been a bit distracted lately” over his failure to scrap NHS England, 14 months after the PM announced the move.
She added: “He’s chuntering now. Why don’t you just do your job? …There’s no point in him giving me dirty looks. We all know what he has been up to.”
The row completely overshadowed the second King’s Speech of Sir Keir’s premiership, where he laid out 35 bills for a new programme for government, 22 months after Labour won the 2024 general election.
But even the King’s Speech had hints of Sir Keir’s weakened authority with no legislation listed for welfare reform after he suffered a humiliating rebellion last summer, which forced him to retreat on plans to cut benefits.
There was also nothing to back up his plans to increase defence spending, suggesting that the “welfare over defence” argument was being won in Labour against his desire to bring it to above 3 per cent.
As the Commons sat for the start of the King’s Speech debate, Labour MPs were noticeably stony-faced.
Sir Keir tried to make light of the situation with a joke as he responded to the King’s Speech. As he took to the podium, he referred to backbencher MP Naz Shah’s opening address: “Members across the House will have read her remarkable new book. Her list of endorsements is truly impressive, reaching well over 100 members – at last, a list that we could all get behind.”
More than 90 Labour MPs have publicly demanded that he quit, while another 100 have signed a letter asking him to stay as the party splits over his future.
The prime minister defended his government’s record with Labour MPs still smarting from last week’s humiliating election results, which saw the party almost wiped out in Wales, suffer its worst defeat in Scotland and lose around 1,500 council seats in England.
But looking ahead, Sir Keir told the Commons the government was proposing “bills to increase the pace of change in our NHS, in law enforcement, in controlling our borders and more”.
He added: “Whilst immigration is down, we need to do more. Whilst violent crime is down, it needs to be lower.
“Whilst NHS waiting lists are down, we must go further – a rewiring of the state so the working people of this country feel that it serves their interests.”
Sir Keir later told MPs: “We will, as a defining act of this government, rebuild our relationship with Europe – Britain back at the heart of a stronger Europe.
“That is good for growth. It will reduce the cost of living and strengthen our security. There is no good reason to oppose it. So, for our economic security, for our Labour values, this government will act.”
But in a sign of the troubles Sir Keir faces, Labour MP Barry Gardiner could be seen sitting behind the prime minister in the Commons holding a copy of The Fraud by Owen Jones, a book highly critical of Sir Keir’s leadership of the Labour Party.
