Wes Streeting, who resigned as UK health secretary this week, announced on Saturday that he will stand to replace Sir Keir Starmer as Labor leader and prime minister after the party suffered a disastrous local election result.
Streeting left the government on Thursday with a lackluster assessment of Starmer’s leadership, but no other senior ministers followed suit and the 43-year-old MP did not immediately trigger a leadership contest.
Later that day, the mayor of Greater Manchester, Andy Burnham, launched a bid to become an MP which, if successful, would allow the 56-year-old from the left of the party to stand in that race.
While he has yet to announce that he has begun the formal leadership challenge process, Streeting confirmed on Saturday that he will run to replace Starmer and become the new leader of Labour.
Whoever leads the ruling party, which has a large majority in the British parliament, will become prime minister.
“We need a proper race with the best candidates in the field, and I will stand,” Streeting said during an event at a London think tank.
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Explaining the lack of a formal launch of the race, Streeting – from the right wing of Labor and long thought to covet the prime ministership – said he wanted “all the candidates … in the field”.
“If we had rushed forward without giving Andy a chance to get out, the new leader, whether it was me or someone else, would have lacked legitimacy.”
A Labor leadership contest could be triggered if 81 of its MPs – 20% of the party in parliament – formally back a candidate to challenge Starmer and submit the necessary documents.
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Starmer, as incumbent leader, would automatically be on the ballot if he wants to defend the challenge.
Labor members and associates then get to vote, not just MPs. They rank candidates by preference and a contender needs 50% to win.
Labour’s National Executive Committee (NEC) – which selects the party’s candidates in parliamentary seat elections – said on Friday it had allowed Burnham to “run in the candidate selection process” in the by-election in Makerfield, north-west England.
That race is expected in mid-June at the earliest, meaning any formal leadership challenge is likely to be triggered after that.
The political tableau follows dismal results for Labor in last week’s local and regional elections, which have prompted several new ministers and dozens of party MPs to call for Starmer to stand down.
But to surrounded The 63-year-old British leader appears to have been granted a stay of execution while Burnham’s fate is decided in the Makerfield by-election.
Burnham told British media on Saturday that he was prepared to “fight at the highest level”.
Streeting, meanwhile, appears to have launched a leadership campaign in all but name.
Laying out a new policy platform at the think-tank event on Saturday, he said Brexit it was “a catastrophic mistake” and that Britain should pursue a “new special relationship” with the European Union.
He signaled that he wanted to see the country rejoin the trading bloc in the future.
(hmm)
