Streeting threatens Labour leadership challenge as Starmer vows to fight

Wes Streeting has put Labour’s governing authority under direct strain, saying he could trigger a leadership contest as soon as next week and urging Keir Starmer to consider stepping aside before the party is dragged into open war. The former health secretary, who quit the cabinet last month, has emerged as one of the most prominent possible challengers at a moment when Starmer’s grip on the party is being tested from several directions at once.

Starmer tried to project calm from the G7 summit in Evian, saying a challenge would be bad for Britain and that he would fight any formal contest. But the rules now shape the stakes starkly: an MP seeking to trigger a challenge needs backing from 20% of the Parliamentary Labour Party, a threshold raised from 10% in 2021. With Labour holding 403 MPs, that means 81 signatures. Once a contest is triggered, the incumbent leader is automatically placed on the ballot.

That possibility matters because Labour has almost no precedent for a sitting leader being pushed into a contest while in government. No sitting Labour prime minister has ever faced a leadership election, and the only leadership contest held while Labour was in office came in 1976 after Harold Wilson resigned. Streeting said he preferred Starmer to step aside on his own terms rather than leave it to him or Andy Burnham to force the issue, and he said he already had the support needed to launch a challenge.

The pressure on Starmer widened further after John Healey resigned on June 11, saying the Treasury was unwilling to commit enough resources for defence. Reporting on the departure said the planned settlement would lift defence spending to about 2.68% of GDP by 2030, a figure that has intensified criticism of the government’s management and added to doubts about Starmer’s authority inside his own party.

The threat is now tied to Westminster numbers and local political maneuvering alike. About 75,000 voters in Makerfield were casting ballots in a by-election being watched for its national implications, with the contest seen as a possible route for Andy Burnham to return to Parliament and emerge as a leadership contender. If the question escalates into a formal challenge, Labour could spend weeks or months locked in internal conflict instead of governing, with rivals already preparing to exploit the uncertainty.