Britain’s Labour leadership crisis burst into open rebellion Thursday as Health Secretary Wes Streeting resigned from Keir Starmer’s Cabinet, a move widely seen as the opening shot in a bid to unseat the prime minister from inside his own government. The maneuvering comes after disastrous results for Labour in local and regional elections last week, with the party’s own lawmakers now openly questioning Starmer’s judgment, vision and leadership.
Who Has the Power
Streeting became the first senior minister to quit Starmer’s Cabinet on Thursday, and his resignation letter did not bother with polite theater. “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,” he wrote. He added, “It is now clear that you will not lead the Labour Party into the next general election.”
Streeting, whose political ambitions have long been known, is considered one of a handful of people who could try to unseat Starmer. But the machinery of party rule makes clear that this is an internal contest among MPs, not any kind of democratic reset for ordinary people. Labour was elected for a five-year term, and British political rules allow parties to change leader without going to the country. In other words, the public gets the bill while the party apparatus sorts out its own crisis.
Who Gets Crushed
Pressure for Starmer to step aside has intensified since Labour suffered heavy losses in local and regional elections last week, underscoring voter frustration with a government that has failed to deliver on pledges to boost economic growth and improve living standards for working people. A stagnant economy and stubbornly high consumer price inflation have made it difficult for Starmer’s government to deliver on its promises after winning a landslide election victory less than two years ago.
Starmer has vowed to remain in office, warning lawmakers that any leadership contest would plunge the government into “chaos” at a time it should be focused on issues like the cost of living crisis and war in the Middle East. That warning comes from the top of a system that asks people to accept stability while their wages, prices and services remain under pressure.
His effort to fight off a leadership challenge was bolstered Thursday morning by a rare bit of positive economic news. Gross domestic product grew 0.6% in the first three months of the year, compared with 0.2% in the previous quarter, the Office for National Statistics said. Treasury chief Rachel Reeves said the figures showed that her policies were working and that renewed economic growth would allow the government to put more money into public services and programs to support those hit by the high cost of living. She said the party shouldn’t put hard-won economic stability at risk “by plunging the country in chaos at a time when there is conflict in the world.”
What They Call Stability
There was also positive news from the National Health Service. Figures showed that waiting lines for NHS appointments, one of Streeting’s signature priorities, fell for the fifth straight month. The numbers offer the usual managerial reassurance, even as the broader political structure remains locked in a contest over who gets to administer it.
Another likely challenger, former Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner, said Thursday that she had reached an agreement with tax authorities to clear up questions about her taxes that forced her to leave the Cabinet last September. Rayner told the Guardian newspaper that Starmer should “reflect on” his position, adding that she was ready to “play my part” in any leadership election if Streeting were to trigger a contest.
Rayner is a favorite of members who think the party has strayed too far from its working-class roots and those who want the party to do more to boost the minimum wage and raise taxes on the rich. Streeting comes from a faction of the left-leaning Labour Party that sees itself as the modernizing wing, as does Starmer. The split is not over whether power should be concentrated in the party machine, but over which faction gets to hold the levers.
Under Labour Party rules, any potential challenger to the prime minister would have to have the backing of 81 of the party’s 403 members in the House of Commons. More than that number have publicly called on Starmer to quit in recent days. Other potential candidates may enter any race for the leadership.
Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham is widely seen as a potential candidate, though he would have to find a way back into Parliament before he could run. Allies have suggested a sitting member of the House of Commons could resign to make way for Burnham to run in a special election. That is the kind of procedural workaround that keeps politics safely inside the walls of the institution.
Jonathan Tonge, a professor of politics at the University of Liverpool, said Labour does not have a history of deposing leaders while in office. He said, “They don’t do ruthless on their leader. They don’t tend to depose their leader. The Conservatives, they readily do ruthless.” Tonge added that if the current efforts to unseat Starmer fizzle out, that would probably just delay the crisis for a few months given the level of fragmentation in British politics. He said, “If a civil war opens up within a Labour Party that’s supposed to be governing us at present, it’s an extraordinary state of affairs given it’s less than two years since Keir Starmer won one of Labor’s greatest election victories ever.” He added, “He’s got a huge parliamentary majority, he’s got more than 400 MPs, and yet his prime ministership may be on the brink of disintegration.”