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Streeting calls for leadership contest with ‘best possible candidates’ – saying Labour must offer ‘bigger solutions’
Here are the key points from Wes Streeting’s resignation letter. And “resignation letter” is crucial; overshadowing the news that he has quit cabinet is the second revelation in the letter – that he is not launching a leadership bid, at least now. This will be seen as confirmation that he does not have the 80 MP backers he would need to force a contest.
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Streeting says he is resigning because he wants Labour to have a leadership contest with “the best possible field of candidates”. This implies that he wants Andy Burnham to be allowed to stand as a candidate, and that he does not favour an immediate contest. He does not suggest a timetable for when he would like to see a contest happen, but the implication is ‘not now, but reasonably soon, after Burnham has had the chance to fight a byelection’. He tells Keir Starmer:
It is now clear that you will not lead the Labour party into the next general election and that Labour MPs and Labour unions want the debate about what comes next to be a battle of ideas, not of personalities or petty factionalism. [See 9.45am.] It needs to be broad, and it needs the best possible field of candidates. I support that approach and I hope that you will facilitate this.
Serving as your secretary of state for health and social care has been the greatest joy of my life and, regardless of our differences this week, I remain truly grateful to you for the opportunity to serve and I am deeply saddened to be leaving government in this way.
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He accuses Starmer of failing to offer proper leadership, and of being at least in part responsible for the scale of Labour losses in the elections last week. He says:
There is no doubt that the unpopularity of this government was a major and common factor in our defeats across England, Scotland and Wales. Good Labour people lost through no fault of their own. There are many reasons we could point to: from individual mistakes on policy like the decision to cut the winter fuel allowance to the ‘island of strangers’ speech, all of which have left the country not knowing who we are or what we really stand for.
You have many great strengths that I admire. You led our party to a victory few thought possible in 2024 and I was proud to fight alongside you in the trenches of that campaign. You have shown courage and statesmanship on the world stage – not least in keeping Britain out of the war in Iran.
But where we need vision, we have a vacuum. Where we need direction, we have drift. This was underscored by your speech on Monday. Leaders take responsibility, but too often that has meant other people falling on their swords. You also need to listen to your colleagues, including backbenchers, and the heavy-handed approach to dissenting voices diminishes our politics.
These are all good reasons for me to remain in post, but as you know from our conversation earlier this week, having lost confidence in your leadership, I have concluded that it would be dishonourable and unprincipled to do so.
Last week’s election results were unprecedented – both in terms of the scale of the defeat and the consequences of that failure. For the first time in our country’s history, nationalists are in power in every corner of the United Kingdom – including a dangerous English nationalism represented by Nigel Farage and Reform UK. This represents both an existential threat to the future integrity of the United Kingdom, but Reform UK also represent a threat to the values and ideals that have made this country great. Progressives across our country understand this threat and our responsibility to confront it, but they are increasingly losing faith that the Labour party is capable of rising to our historic responsibility of defeating racism and offering hope that Britain’s best days lie ahead through social democracy.
As a member of your government, I know better than most that governing is hard. It should be, because it matters. There are enormous challenges facing this country. For the first time in our history the next generation faces a worse inheritance than the last. We have wars raging in Europe and the Middle East that are making our challenges harder, not easier. We are in the foothills of a technological industrial revolution that has huge implications for every aspect of our lives – not least the future of work. It is not clear whether democracy or tyranny will define the 21st century. After the financial crisis, austerity, the disaster of Brexit, Liz Truss, the Covid pandemic, the war in Ukraine and now the war in Iran, the country needs to believe again that things can be better than this and that politics is part of the answer, not the source of the problem. These are big challenges that require a bold vision and bigger solutions than we are offering.
I’ve delivered against the ambitious targets you set for me when I became your secretary of state for health and social care. 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.
Key events
What journalists and commentators are saying about Streeting’s resignation letter
Here is some commentary on the Wes Streeting letter from political journalists.
From my colleague Jessica Elgot
This letter from Wes Streeting reads awfully like the beginnings of an Andy Burnham deal… “a battle of ideas, not of personalities or petty factionalism. It needs to be broad, and it needs the best possible field of candidates. I support that approach and I hope that you will facilitate this.”
From Robert Shrimsley at the FT
So this is quite a cute way out. He does the brave thing but positions it as a move for the whole party by a) delaying the collection of names (which he may not have) and b) saying the contest must wait for Andy.
From Joe Pike at the BBC
The Streeting strategy now seems to be getting his supporters to pile pressure on the PM to quit, and avoiding a vote of Labour MPs on whether to challenge Keir Starmer.
“We wait and see what Keir does”, says one senior ally of the former health secretary. “There’s still a chance Keir goes of his own accord and sets a timetable and ends this chaos.”
Supporters of Wes Streeting claim he has the 81 MPs needed to mount a leadership challenge. They also suggest more ministers could resign from government later today, although not necessarily at cabinet level.
From Alex Wickham at Bloomberg
One thing is clear: Wes Streeting has accepted he is unable to trigger a contest now. We know he originally wanted a ‘swift’ contest because that’s what his allies said in their statements. Now he’s backed down and called for an orderly transition. So it’s over to Andy Burnham.
From Adam Bienkov at Byline Times
Streeting’s letter and the language about wanting a “broad” contest suggests he’s opening the door to a deal with Burnham.
He surely knows he can’t win the contest outright himself (see today’s Labourlist polling) but could still position himself for a top job
From Charlie Cooper at Politico
Streeting will know his odds of winning any contest against soft left are low But his letter appears (skilfully) written with an eye on senior Cabinet job in any future Burnham/Rayner govt Opened door to wide contest. Sympathised with left’s concerns eg. immigration rhetoric
From Dan Hodges from the Mail on Sunday
People totally missing the point about Streeting’s letter. The issue of whether he has the numbers is no longer relevant. All that matters now is all the main candidates, the bulk of the PLP, 2/3rds of the cabinet and the Trade Unions all agree Starmer has to set out a timetable for his departure leading up to September. That’s broken the logjam.
This is from Jonathan Brash, the Labour MP for Hartlepool, on Wes Streeting’s letter. Brash was one of the MPs calling for Keir Starmer to quit even before the May elections.
The call for a broad contest with the best possible field of candidates is absolutely right from @wesstreeting. The Prime Minister should now do the right thing for the country and set a timetable.
Wes Streeting’s letter today makes it a lot less likely that there will a Labour leadership contest soon with Keir Starmer as a candidate. Streeting seems to be working on the assumption that at some point in the future there will be a contest that won’t feature Starmer. (See 1.26pm.)
So polling by LabourList published a bit earlier may be less relevant than it was this morning. But it is still quite interesting. It is a poll of Labour members and it suggests, in a head-to-head contest, Starmer would lose to Andy Burnham (easily) and would lose to Angela Rayner or Ed Miliband (by a narrow margin), but would beat all other potential candidates (including Streeting) quite easily.
One problem with polling like this is that Labour leadership contests normally don’t boil down to a head-to-head between two candidates. It is more likely that members would choose between several candidates and, as Jessica Elgot points out, the preferential voting system used might help Starmer because he would be lots of people’s second choice.
The Green party has issued this statement in response to Wes Streeting’s resignation. A Green spokesperson said:
If Labour thinks Wes Streeting is the answer, they obviously don’t know the question the country is asking.
Last week’s elections show the country is crying out for a break from the failed status quo. Keir Starmer has been unable and unwilling to break with an economic model that has fuelled the affordability crisis, and this is why we have said he must go.
Wes Streeting would be more of the same, but even worse, a factional and divisive politician, a close ally of Peter Mandelson, who favours an economy even more tilted to the wealthy, and whose record as health secretary is more privatisation and more personal donations from private healthcare.
This reads like a statement drafted in anticipation of Streeting launching a leadership challenge which nobody could be bothered to re-write after it emerged that he’s not doing that (at least today – see 1.32pm.) What we’ve learned this afternoon is that Labour doesn’t think Streeting is the answer; if they did, he would have the MP backer numbers and would be launching a leadership bid.
Streeting says NHS is ‘on road to recovery’ as result of measures taken while he was health secretary
Here is more on what Wes Streeting says in his resignation letter on his record as health secretary. He says:
The only question that matters in government is whether we leave our successors a better situation than we inherited. Ambulance response times for heart attacks and strokes are now the fastest in five years. A&E waiting times are improving, with four-hour waiting figures also the best in five years. We’ve recruited 2,000 more GPs and satisfaction has risen from 60 per cent to 74.5 per cent since we came to office. We hit our target of recruiting 8,500 mental health staff three years early. We’ve achieved this at the same as balancing the books for the first time in nine years and smashing the 2 per cent NHS productivity target by achieving 2.8 per cent, which means the investment we’re putting in goes further and that the public can have greater confidence that their money is being well-spent.
None of this would have been achieved without the brilliant leadership team of ministers, officials, and special advisers we have established in the Department of Health and Social Care and the NHS – superbly led by Samantha Jones and Sir Jim Mackey, who has been a knight in shining armour and a brilliant leader of 1.5 million staff upon whom all this success depends.
The National Health Service is the embodiment of all that is best about Britain and our values. Thanks to our Labour government, it is on the road to recovery: lots done, but so much more to do.
Streeting calls for leadership contest with ‘best possible candidates’ – saying Labour must offer ‘bigger solutions’
Here are the key points from Wes Streeting’s resignation letter. And “resignation letter” is crucial; overshadowing the news that he has quit cabinet is the second revelation in the letter – that he is not launching a leadership bid, at least now. This will be seen as confirmation that he does not have the 80 MP backers he would need to force a contest.
-
Streeting says he is resigning because he wants Labour to have a leadership contest with “the best possible field of candidates”. This implies that he wants Andy Burnham to be allowed to stand as a candidate, and that he does not favour an immediate contest. He does not suggest a timetable for when he would like to see a contest happen, but the implication is ‘not now, but reasonably soon, after Burnham has had the chance to fight a byelection’. He tells Keir Starmer:
It is now clear that you will not lead the Labour party into the next general election and that Labour MPs and Labour unions want the debate about what comes next to be a battle of ideas, not of personalities or petty factionalism. [See 9.45am.] It needs to be broad, and it needs the best possible field of candidates. I support that approach and I hope that you will facilitate this.
Serving as your secretary of state for health and social care has been the greatest joy of my life and, regardless of our differences this week, I remain truly grateful to you for the opportunity to serve and I am deeply saddened to be leaving government in this way.
-
He accuses Starmer of failing to offer proper leadership, and of being at least in part responsible for the scale of Labour losses in the elections last week. He says:
There is no doubt that the unpopularity of this government was a major and common factor in our defeats across England, Scotland and Wales. Good Labour people lost through no fault of their own. There are many reasons we could point to: from individual mistakes on policy like the decision to cut the winter fuel allowance to the ‘island of strangers’ speech, all of which have left the country not knowing who we are or what we really stand for.
You have many great strengths that I admire. You led our party to a victory few thought possible in 2024 and I was proud to fight alongside you in the trenches of that campaign. You have shown courage and statesmanship on the world stage – not least in keeping Britain out of the war in Iran.
But where we need vision, we have a vacuum. Where we need direction, we have drift. This was underscored by your speech on Monday. Leaders take responsibility, but too often that has meant other people falling on their swords. You also need to listen to your colleagues, including backbenchers, and the heavy-handed approach to dissenting voices diminishes our politics.
These are all good reasons for me to remain in post, but as you know from our conversation earlier this week, having lost confidence in your leadership, I have concluded that it would be dishonourable and unprincipled to do so.
Last week’s election results were unprecedented – both in terms of the scale of the defeat and the consequences of that failure. For the first time in our country’s history, nationalists are in power in every corner of the United Kingdom – including a dangerous English nationalism represented by Nigel Farage and Reform UK. This represents both an existential threat to the future integrity of the United Kingdom, but Reform UK also represent a threat to the values and ideals that have made this country great. Progressives across our country understand this threat and our responsibility to confront it, but they are increasingly losing faith that the Labour party is capable of rising to our historic responsibility of defeating racism and offering hope that Britain’s best days lie ahead through social democracy.
As a member of your government, I know better than most that governing is hard. It should be, because it matters. There are enormous challenges facing this country. For the first time in our history the next generation faces a worse inheritance than the last. We have wars raging in Europe and the Middle East that are making our challenges harder, not easier. We are in the foothills of a technological industrial revolution that has huge implications for every aspect of our lives – not least the future of work. It is not clear whether democracy or tyranny will define the 21st century. After the financial crisis, austerity, the disaster of Brexit, Liz Truss, the Covid pandemic, the war in Ukraine and now the war in Iran, the country needs to believe again that things can be better than this and that politics is part of the answer, not the source of the problem. These are big challenges that require a bold vision and bigger solutions than we are offering.
I’ve delivered against the ambitious targets you set for me when I became your secretary of state for health and social care. 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.
Wes Streeting resigns
Wes Streeting has resigned.
Here is Heather Stewart’s explainer on the HMRC investigation into Angela Rayner’s stamp duty error.
How HMRC investigation found Rayner’s stamp duty error was in least serious category
It is worth clarifying the HMRC finding about Angela Rayner’s stamp duty error; her mistake was in the least serious category.
HMRC has three categories of error: errors made despite taking reasonable care; careless errors; and deliberate errors. (Within deliberate errors, there are two categories: deliberate and concealed; deliberate but not concealed.)
Rayner’s mistake was in the “despite taking reasonable care” category.
Speaking to ITV about the HMRC ruling, she said:
They’ve said that there wasn’t any wrongdoing and that I didn’t try to avoid paying tax or I wasn’t careless in the way in which I conducted myself at the time when I was in government.
HMRC says:
Where the error was made despite taking reasonable care, and is adjusted under the error correction regime in the return for the period of discovery, we treat the person as having taken reasonable steps to inform us of the inaccuracy and no penalty will be due.
Streeting in standoff with No 10 as allies claim ‘things are shifting’
Wes Streeting is locked in a standoff with No 10 as allies claimed he had the numbers to launch a leadership challenge but still hoped Keir Starmer would resign, Jessica Elgot reports. She says:
The health secretary had been widely expected to launch a challenge on Thursday and has told supporters he has the backing of the 81 MPs required to launch a formal contest. A source close to Streeting said he had the numbers but “things are shifting”.
But allies said he was still hoping not to have to move against Starmer directly and that more and more MPs were privately asking the prime minister to resign or set out a departure timetable.
Cabinet ministers told the Guardian it was untrue that they were planning to ask Starmer to go on Thursday afternoon, accusing Streeting’s supporters of trying to “brief resignations into existence”.
Here is Jess’s full story.
Starmer/Streeting/Labour leadership: lobby latest on what on earth might be going on
Here is some comment from political journalists prompted by the latest “things are shifting” briefing from the Wes Streeting camp this morning. (See 11.20am.)
From Steven Swinford at the Times
Totally surreal situation now:
Wes Streeting was preparing to launch today but may now delay because he is said to be struggling to get the numbers. His people deny this – they say he has the numbers – but say that things have changed and more cabinet ministers are going over the top and pressing for Starmer to go. But…
Keir Starmer insists he is going nowhere. The number calling for him to go remains at 92 – where it’s been for the last 24 hours – equivalent to nearly a third of backbenchers. His allies say that good news on economy and NHS makes his case for him. He is going fo fight on ….
None of this is remotely sustainable. How can you have a senior Cabinet minister publicly positioning himself for a run at Number 10? How can you have a third of backbenchers publicly calling for the PM to go.
From Alex Wickham at Bloomberg
[The Streeting briefing] suggests to me Streeting is holding off from making his move until more cabinet ministers and MPs call for Starmer to go. And they may say they have the numbers but they haven’t yet proved it.
Wickham also says ministers are disputing the claim from the Streeting camp that cabinet ministers are telling Starmer to go.
People familiar with the thinking of at least four cabinet ministers, including those close to both Streeting and Burnham, immediately DENY this claim by Streeting’s camp that they’ll go to Starmer today to tell him to go
From Rob Powell at Sky
Are we stuck in the Streeting Catch-22? Avoiding the accusation of putting personal ambition above national interest means not being the one to trigger the race. But staying silent amid the lack of anyone else triggering it is not exactly politically beneficial either.
From Robert Peston at ITV
Those close to Streeting say he has more than 81 nominations and could trigger a leadership contest. But they believe Streeting’s announcement could be pre-empted by the PM announcing a timetable for his departure, even today.
This could all be feverish wishful thinking. But I have been told by less partisan government sources that we are “in the end game”.
From Adam Boulton from Times Radio
In a nutshell, Labour MPs nearly all want someone other than @Keir_Starmer but they don’t know who that is.
No 10 says Streeting still health secretary, and PM still has confidence in him
The Downing Street lobby briefing has just finished. Wes Streeting is still health secretary, and the PM still has full confidence in him, the PM’s spokesperson said. The spokersperson said the situation had not changed since yesterday, he said.
Ben Quinn
Ben Quinn is a Guardian political correspondent.
Nigel Farage is facing a formal investigation over a £5m gift from the crypto billionaire Christopher Harborne, parliament’s standards watchdog formally confirmed today.
The Reform UK leader’s name has been published on the website of the parliamentary commissioner for standards, which states he is being investigated over an alleged “failure to declare an interest”.
The probe was opened yesterday according to the entry, which confirms he is being investigated under rule 5 of the code of conduct for MPs. Rule 5 of the code of conduct obliges MPs to “fulfil conscientiously” requirements relating to their registration of interests.
Farage is one of five MPs who are currently the focus of ongoing investigations by the standards watchdog, although he is the only one being probed under rule 5.
Wes Streeting’s allies have been briefing journalists. This is from Alex Wickham at Bloomberg, but other lobby correspondents are being given the same message.
Supporters of Wes Streeting claim he has the numbers BUT they say “things are shifting”
They claim MPs who signed the loyalty letter told the PM last night he has to go
They claim cabinet ministers are going in to Downing Street today tell Starmer to go
They claim Darren Jones is telling MPs the PM is going to go
Ed Davey accuses Streeting of having ‘dire track record’ at NHS, saying 12-hour A&E waits up 20% since 2024
The Liberal Democrats say Wes Streeting should not be celebrating the NHS England performance figures out today. They are focusing on the figures for waits lasting more than 12 hours in A&E departments.
According to the Press Association, the number of people waiting more than 12 hours in A&E departments in England from a decision to admit to actually being admitted stood at 47,750 in April, up slightly from 46,665 in March, NHS figures indicate. The figure reached a record 71,517 people in January.
The Lib Dems says:
220,581 A&E patients have had to wait over 12 hours from decision to admit to admission, such as on a corridor or in a plastic chair, so far this year. That number is the worst on record. The equivalent period in 2025 saw 20,000 fewer patients face this ordeal, and is up by nearly 40,000 on the equivalent point in 2024. This means that since Labour took office the numbers facing degrading trolley waits has increased by over 20%.
Ed Davey, the Lib Dem leader, said:
The devastating A&E statistics this morning prove that Wes Streeting has been too busy measuring the curtains in Number 10 to turn our NHS around.
This is a dire track record for any minister with plans to take the top job. Labour’s management of our NHS has been a walking policy disaster.
Kevin Schofield, political editor at HuffPost UK, says a Wes Streeting leadership challenge is now looking more unlikely.
Looking increasingly unlikely that Wes Streeting will challenge Keir Starmer today.
Some in his team are not convinced he has the 81 supporters locked in to formally launch a contest.
Suspicion that Angela Rayner’s announcement this morning that she’s been cleared by HMRC is also making Streeting think twice.
(Readers may be getting fed up with the uncertainty. You’re not alone; journalists would like a bit of certainty too.)
Streeting says NHS England has achieved biggest single-month cut in waiting lists in 17 years
Wes Streeting hasn’t resigned yet – because he has just issued a statement about the NHS England waiting figures.
He said:
Our plan for the NHS is working. This is the biggest cut in waiting lists in a single month in 17 years.
It means we are right on track to deliver the fastest reduction in waiting times in the history of the NHS.
That is thanks to the Government’s investment, modernisation, and the remarkable efforts of staff right across the country.
Lots done, lots more to do.
Here is the NHS England news release about the figures. Confusingly, the figures it quotes don’t seem to match the claim Streeting is making. It says “the waiting list fell by over 312,000 last year, the largest year-on-year reduction in 16 years”. I’m seeking clarification as to why Streeting described the figures differently.
UPDATE: NHS England says that, when Streeting refers to the biggest single-month drop in 17 years, he was referring to figures showing that there was a 110,000 drop in the waiting list in March – the biggest individual monthly drop in 17 years.
Cleared by HMRC, Angela Rayner says Labour must deliver change – video
Here is a clip from Pippa Crerar’s inteview with Angela Rayner.
Ed Miliband, the energy secreratary and Labour leader from 2010 to 2015, has also told some colleagues that, in the right circumstances, he could stand for the leadership, Newsnight’s Nicholas Watt reports. Publicly, Miliband has said he won’t stand again. But soft-left Labour are in a panic over who would be their candidate in the event of Wes Streeting launching a contest. Broadly, they don’t want to back Starmer, because they think he will lose the next election; they like Andy Burnham, but are not confident he will be a candidate; and they have reservations about Angela Rayner, another potential ‘stop Streeting’ option.
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