Wes Streeting has resigned as Health Secretary and is poised to mount a Labour leadership challenge against Sir Keir Starmer, telling the PM: “Where we need vision, we have a vacuum. Where we need direction, we have drift.” The Telegraph has more.
Streeting listed a series of “mistakes” that had contributed to the historic local election losses last week, including cutting the winter fuel allowance of Sir Keir’s “island of strangers” speech.
Wes Streeting has told Sir Keir Starmer that he has “lost confidence” in him and that it would be “dishonourable” to continue serving in his Cabinet.
The former health secretary said: “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. “
He added: “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.
“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.”
Streeting accused Starmer of not taking enough responsibility for his mistakes, with “other people falling on their swords” instead.
He said: “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.”
Tony Diver notes an “interesting line in Wes Streeting’s resignation letter that could significantly change how the leadership crisis in Downing Street plays out”.
The former health secretary said he wanted a “debate” in the Labour Party and a “battle of ideas”, which is a coded reference to a leadership contest.
But he also said he wanted the process to have the “best possible field of candidates”. That would appear to suggest he wants Andy Burnham, the Manchester Mayor, to be allowed to run.
Burnham is not currently an MP, but his allies want any leadership contest to be delayed until after he runs in a by-election. He is the most popular contender with the public, polls show.
Streeting tweeted his resignation letter:
Follow the Telegraph‘s live coverage here.
Stop Press: Andy Burnham is set to return to Parliament to stand in the anticipated Labour leadership election after Josh Simons, the MP for Makerfield in Greater Manchester, resigned to make way for him. Simons resigned from his ministerial role in February over his involvement in a smear campaign against journalists when he ran the Morgan McSweeney-founded think-tank Labour Together. Reform has said it will fight hard in the by-election to defeat Burnham, with the latest MRP polling from Electoral Calculus (conducted last month) showing the seat would likely fall to Reform in an imminent general election by 46 to 35% – though a Burnham by-election could change that.
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How astonishing … just when today I’d been reading about Wes Streeting’s attempt to link his homosexuality with his Protestant Church of England faith (How to convince God to overlook the fact that you are brazenly defying Him and the two most basic tenets of Christianity), I came across this:
Geert Wilders For Breitbart: I Will Press Charges Against Wes Streeting
Geert Wilders said, “I have received thousands of death threats – mostly from Islamic radicals (including fatwas), but also from other, leftish, extremists. Until earlier today, I was unaware that senior British Labour politician and aspiring Prime Minister Wes Streeting belonged among the violent thugs and jihadis CALLING FOR MY ASSASSINATION.”
“In October 2009, [“CHRISTIAN”] Mr Streeting publicly expressed the desire to ESTABLISH A VIGILANTE GROUP TO THROW OPPONENTS UNDER TRAINS. One of the individuals singled out for physical elimination by Britain’s current Health Secretary was me. I have never met Mr Streeting, nor have I ever had any dealings with him. Yet apparently, he considered me politically dangerous and “nasty” because, exactly in October 2009, a British court had overturned a travel ban imposed on me by the then Labour government. That ban had prevented me from entering… Read more »
So Lord Josh of Makerfield it will be IF Burnham wins and then gets the Labour leadership.
I’m sure Farage will e keen to challenge. The only reason they would hold back is if they think Burnham might be good for Reform and bad for Labour.
Meanwhile there will be 3 months of antagonism within Labour. Ministers will back peddle and even the leftie friendly civil servants will think twice. A new PM (Burnham or another) could well dismiss senior civil servants as Starmer has done because their advice had been unwelcome.
Just heard Reform will throw everything at it. Great.
The convention isn’t is up to the party formerly holding the seat to petition for the by-election. Will Starmer find a process to delay it beyond the Conference season. Labour is 27-30 September in Liverpool.
Reform is early September at NEC.
By election is unlikely to be in summer school holidays. Notice is six weeks. Looks tight for Labour!!!
Great.
And just by coincidence… Rayner’s tax case has been dismissed by HMRC removing any obstacle to her running as PM (😱).
And by another coincidence, after Reform’s spectacular success and as Starmer wriggles on a hook, there is a concerted attempt to smear Nigel Farage and there is to be a Parliamentary standards commission enquiry.
I do love coincidences.
And I love irony.
Interesting how Streeting has looked at last week’s local election results and apparently decided that the way to win the next GE is to commit to doing more of the things that voters roundly rejected at the ballot boxes. The most important thing, apparently, is not to appear to be in any way patriotic.
“and the heavy-handed approach to dissenting voices diminishes our politics”. Does he really mean this? Does Lucy Connelly know? Should be told.
In the “island of strangers” speech there was a hint that Starmer had actually noticed some of the damage that the mass immigration he encouraged had done to the UK. Just a hint of course. And you can’t rely on any words coming out of Starmer’s mouth as he showed by backtracking shortly afterwards.
Now Streeting wants to move decisively away from any questioning of mass immigration. He thinks the problem now is that Rape Gang members, formerly reliable labour voters, have now switched their support to the Green Party or pro-Gaza independents. He wants them and their friends to come back to the Labour party.
Well, nothing much happened anywhere else in the world, according to BBC R4 this afternoon, apart from a brief report about the Trump visit to Beijing. Of course, their Westminster studio is quite handy for various participants in the débacle
Wes Streeting is a lump of political dross who appears to believe that white people who love their countries are “racists” (i.e. that they’re evil incarnate). It’s interesting that Streeting dared to put his Party’s thinking on this subject out in the open because it goes a long way to explaining why The Party of Anti-Whitists and Anglophobes (The Labour Party) is addicted to mad mass unlimited immigration, and The Great Replacement.
At least, there cannot be any doubt what Streeting’s going to stand for: Unlimited immigration from everywhere at the highest possible speed. However, I suspect that Reform didn’t do so very well because people Starmer’s island of stranger speech made people doubt that Labour actually wanted that.