Starmer rival Streeting set to resign and challenge UK prime minister

LONDON — The United Kingdom’s governing Labour Party was headed for a divisive battle over the country’s top political office, as a leading Cabinet member prepared to challenge Prime Minister Keir Starmer.

Allies of Wes Streeting, who hails from the right wing of the party, said on Wednesday that the health secretary was likely to quit his post this week and launch a bid to replace Starmer as Labour leader. The prime minister’s own supporters immediately affirmed his determination to contest any attempt to unseat him.

The dramatic events unfolded as an ermine-robed King Charles III processed into Parliament to unveil Starmer’s new legislative agenda. They move the U.K. closer to an extended election campaign that throws policymaking into chaos. Starmer has been struggling to prevent opposition to his leadership from coalescing into a formal challenge ever since heavy losses in last week’s local elections.

While Streeting’s backers had signaled a desire not to disrupt the royal pageantry at the state opening of Parliament, he nonetheless visited Downing Street for an audience with Starmer in the morning. The meeting, which lasted less than 20 minutes, was soon followed by reports that the 43-year-old health secretary was preparing to step down. The Times newspaper was first to report the development.

A spokesperson for Streeting didn’t deny that he was planning to resign and challenge Starmer. The health secretary was seated on the front bench of the House of Commons — a position reserved for members of the Cabinet — for debate on the king’s speech later Thursday, and mustered an occasional laugh at Starmer’s jokes.

Some of them came at his expense. When Leader of the Opposition Kemi Badenoch rose to speak, she quipped, “the Health secretary has been a bit distracted recently,” adding: “There’s no point him giving me dirty looks. We all know what he’s been up to!”

The potential challenge underscored the peril Starmer faces despite forestalling a broader revolt at a high-stakes Cabinet meeting he chaired on Tuesday, at which he took refuge in process and refused to allow the topic of his future onto the agenda. Starmer vowed to fight on, despite more-than a fifth of Labour members of Parliament, including at least two other Cabinet ministers, urging him to step aside.

U.K. government bonds briefly pared gains after the report, with the 10-year yield trading little changed on the day at around 5.10%. While Streeting is seen as less likely than some others in Labour to push for a looser fiscal policy, gilt investors largely prefer Starmer and his Chancellor of the Exchequer, Rachel Reeves, to remain in place and stick to their self-imposed constraints on borrowing.

Any leadership battle could take months, consuming the government’s attention at a time when the U.K. is already struggling with slow growth, weak employment and rising inflation as a result of war in Iran. Contenders would have to win an election among Labour MPs and another among the party’s less than 250,000 paying members.

Conservative leader Badenoch hinted, during debate over the government’s legislative program, at how opposition figures planned to exploit the turmoil. “It is clear his authority has gone, and that he will not be able to deliver what little there is in this King’s Speech,” she said.

Starmer’s pledge to defend his job puts pressure on Streeting to show he can secure the 81 nominations necessary to trigger a contest. Some of the health secretary’s backers said they remained unsure of that, and expressed concern he could lose a head-to-head contest against the prime minister.

A Streeting challenge against Starmer could prompt other contenders, such as Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham, to step forward with their own platforms. While Burnham enjoys broad support among the left of the Labour Party, he needs to show he has a viable path back to Parliament in advance of any contest.

By Wednesday afternoon, there was a push by Burnham supporters to discourage Starmer from taking a stand. One said that they were encouraging members of the Cabinet and even the prime minister’s own staff to tell him he wouldn’t have the support he needed from the left of the party, and urged him to instead set a timetable for a transition out of office.

A spokesperson for Burnham didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

If a contest unfolded before Burnham secures the seat in Parliament he requires to run for the prime minister’s job, Labour’s so-called soft left faction could be compelled to consider alternatives. That could favor high-profile figures like Energy Secretary Ed Miliband and former Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner.

One risk of an immediate contest is that it becomes a free-for-all with other candidates such as Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper, Defense Secretary John Healey and Al Carns, a junior defense minister also standing, MPs said.

Starmer, in his remarks in the House of Commons, made only the most oblique remarks to the threats to his leadership. Otherwise, he reissued an appeal to follow through with the 37 bill in his new legislative agenda.

“There are some in this country, some even in this house, who would feed the frustration with that status quo into a politics of grievance, of division,” Starmer told MPs. “This King’s Speech sets a different course, a more hopeful course.”

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(With assistance from Joe Mayes and Fran Wang.)

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