London politics LIVE: Streeting quits Starmer’s Cabinet but stops short of launching Labour leadership contest

Its been a difficult week for Sir Keir Starmer as he tries desperately to cling onto power following disastrous local election results last week.

Newly-resigned health secretary Wes Streeting, has been a major frontrunner to challenge the PM, with supporters claiming he has the backing of more than 81 MPs, which is enough to trigger a leadership contest.

But, he’s not the only contender.

Andy Burnham, Mayor of Greater Manchester, is overwhelmingly the most popular choice among the Labour party and the public. But he is not currently an MP so he cannot take part in an immediate race.

His allies are fighting for a slower, “orderly” leadership timetable to allow him time to trigger a parliamentary by-election and win a Westminster seat.

The other is former deputy prime minister Angela Rayner who represents the party’s soft-left factions.

Earlier she told The Gurdian that she had resolved the tax issue which cost her her job in government and was ready to “play my part”.

Rayner, like Burnham and Streeting, has strong support among Labour MPs.

Under party rules, any challenger needs the formal backing of 20% of Labour MPs (81 nominations) to get onto the ballot.

An MP backing Wes Streeting to be the next Labour leader has insisted the former health secretary has the support of more than 81 Labour MPs.

The figure, the equivalent of 20% of the parliamentary party, is how many must publicly back a single candidate to trigger a leadership contest.

Alan Gemmell told BBC Radio 4’s World at One programme that Streeting had “taken a principled decision today not to trigger a contest”.

“I’m sure that we will see Wes making the argument for why he would be a great leader of our country”, he said.

Pushed over whether Streeting would throw his hat in the ring, Gemmell said : “I can’t tell you what Wes will do tomorrow.”

He added: “We have had a principled decision by Wes to resign from the government having lost confidence in the prime minister.”

Sir Keir Starmer has just returned to Downing Street, travelling in convoy and entering through the back entrance.

The Prime Minister has not yet publicly commented following Wes Streeting’s resignation as Health Secretary earlier this afternoon.

Sources close to Angela Rayner have told the BBC that she would be prepared to enter a leadership contest if necessary.

Wes Streeting resigned as Health Secretary earlier this afternoon – but has not yet launched a formal leadership challenge.

Mr Streeting’s allies have insisted that he has the support of the 81 Labour MPs necessary to trigger a contest, but that he wants to have a “broad” debate which could take place if Starmer steps down.

Ms Rayner, the former Deputy Prime Minister, revealed this morning that HMRC have cleared her of deliberate wrongdoing in an investigation over her tax affairs.

The revelation paves the way for a potential leadership bid, possibly carrying the centre-left banner against Mr Streeting on the party’s right.

Bridget Phillipson has said that Wes Streeting’s resignation marks a chance for Labour to “draw a line” under the leadership debate.

The Education Secretary became the first Cabinet minister to respond to Mr Streeting’s departure, telling 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.”

Ms Phillipson insisted that the Cabinet is “behind the Prime Minister” despite Mr Streeting’s resignation.

She said: “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.”

Kemi Badenoch has said that Wes Streeting carried out a “hit job” on Prime Minister Keir Starmer, with Labour descending “into civil war.”

In a video posted on X, the Conservative leader said: “I told Wes Streeting to do his job. Instead, he’s done a hit job on the prime minister.

“The Labour Party has now descended into civil war.

“While they’re sharpening their knives and plotting in the bars of Westminster, nobody is running the country.

“The problem is not just Keir Starmer, it’s Labour. And it doesn’t matter which Labour MP is in charge. They’re all queuing up to make things worse.

“Labour can’t even agree on who leads their party. They have a vacancy, we have a plan to get Britain working again.”

Skills minister Baroness Jacqui Smith said she was “very sorry” Wes Streeting had resigned but “we don’t need” a leadership contest.

Baroness Smith told Radio 4’s World At One: “First of all, can I say I’m very sorry that Wes has resigned.

“He has been an excellent health secretary, as we have seen… from the success that we have had in reducing NHS waiting lists, meeting the interim targets that we set ourselves, cutting the amount of time it takes for people to get treatment.

“Something delivered, I think, by the Government as a whole, but certainly championed and led really, really ably by Wes.”

However, she added: “I really think on the day when we’ve been able to learn about the growth that has occurred in the economy in the first part of this year, seen progress on waiting lists, understand the challenge that we face as a country from a war that Keir Starmer, quite rightly in my view, decided not to take us into, what we don’t need is a period of internal discussion and leadership contest.”

Asked whether Mr Streeting’s suggestion that the Labour leadership has left the country not knowing what it stands for is unfair, Baroness Smith said: “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.”

Labour MP Catherine West has been talking to Radio 4’s World At One following Wes Streeting’s resignation.

Ms West, who earlier this week threatened to trigger a leadership contest against Sir Keir Starmer, said that “the important thing is we are now having the honest conversation which we need to have.”

She said that that last week’s disastrous elections are now behind Labour, with the next challenge for the party being how to beat Reform UK.

Asked twice if Streeting’s resignation is what she wanted, Ms West simply reiterated that she wants the cabinet to “get around the table and nominate someone”.

She said: “Many of us like Keir very much as a person. He’s got excellent credentials on the international stage and he could well win a competition if he put his name forward.

“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.”

Asked who she would vote for in a contest between Sir Keir and Mr Streeting, Ms West said: “Well, we don’t know who the other candidates are.”

A backbench Labour MP has told the Press Association that Wes Streeting’s resignation letter “reads like he has no numbers” to make a leadership challenge himself, adding: “He’s screwed himself good and proper.”

Wes Streeting would lose a leadership contest against the Prime Minister by a landslide result, polling of Labour members suggests.

A new survey by Survation for LabourList, released shortly before Mr Streeting’s resignation, revealed that the former Health Secretary would secure just 23% of support among members of the party.

This is compared to 53% for Sir Keir.

It means support for the PM in a head-to-head contest has reached a new high and the PM holds a 34-point lead over his rival, compared with a virtual dead heat in polling done in November last year.