‘S**tshow at the f**k factory’: Inside Streeting’s plan B

By Thursday morning, uncertainty over the size of Streeting’s would-be leadership army fuelled the sense in Westminster that the health secretary’s bid, after days of briefings from his allies that he was ready to go over the top, was melting away.

Chancellor pleads not to ‘plunge the country into chaos’

Just after 7am on Thursday morning, Rachel Reeves – who is sticking by the Prime Minister – made her first intervention on Starmer’s leadership crisis.

In extraordinary scenes live on BBC Breakfast, in the street outside No 10, the Chancellor warned Labour MPs they had an “important decision to make today” not to “plunge the country into chaos” when the economy was showing signs of improvement with 0.6 per cent growth, even in the shadow of the Iran conflict.

Reeves’s comments drew comparisons with the late Queen Elizabeth II’s subtle but pointed intervention on the eve of the Scottish referendum in 2014, when she warned voters should “think very carefully about the future”.

If there were any Labour MPs who were already wavering about whether or not to back Streeting, the Chancellor’s decision to highlight unexpectedly optimistic economic news may have focused their minds.

Just after 9.30am, NHS England published more good news for the Government: figures showing the 18-week target for waits had been met and that the overall waiting list fell by 110,000 in March, the biggest monthly drop outside of Covid since 2008 and despite strikes by doctors.

Streeting responded to the news, saying the Government’s plan for the NHS was working and adding the phrase that he has used twice in the past week – which could become the working title of his leadership campaign: “Lots done, lots more to do.”

Streeting’s brutal assessment of Starmer

Throughout the morning, allies of the PM – who had been briefing earlier in the week that Streeting was “bottling it” – continued to claim that the Ilford North MP “doesn’t have the numbers”.

As the hours ticked by, Westminster was awash with rumours that the challenge was off and that, perhaps, he was not going to resign after all – despite his allies insisting earlier in the week that he would.

One Labour staffer was savage about the apparent delay from Streeting, telling The i Paper: “He [Wes] is f**ked and he is clearly trying to force the PM to resign so he doesn’t have to.

“Wes is finished. No one in Cabinet will have anything to do with him after this. If he had any self-awareness he’d resign at the end of all this, but given his behaviour thus far, there’s scant evidence that he has.”

Yet, finally, at 12.58pm, Streeting’s X account tweeted his resignation letter. It was brutal in its assessment of Starmer – whom he had told in their brief meeting on Wednesday morning that he no longer had confidence in his ability to lead the party into the next election.

Streeting told the PM in his letter: “Where we need vision, we have a vacuum. Where we need direction, we have drift.”

Insiders say there was no wavering or dithering by Streeting and that he was always going to wait until after the King’s Speech, to avoid any distractions or overshadowing the monarch’s set piece constitutional moment, and after he had responded to the good news of falling NHS waiting lists.

Streeting resorts to plan B

Yet despite its devastating critique of the Prime Minister, the Streeting letter stopped short of fully challenging the PM to a contest, which only continued to fuel speculation he does not actually have 81 MPs on his side.

On Wednesday, allies of Streeting had briefed The Times claiming that he was poised to both resign and challenge the Prime Minister – suggesting he has since resorted to a plan B.

It is possible, and his allies do not dispute this, that some of the names on his spreadsheet include ministers who are still serving in Starmer’s Government, and who do not want to resign yet – but would back Streeting if he declared he was standing.

Despite being a close political ally and personal friend of Streeting, Peter Kyle is not following him out the door of Cabinet, The i Paper understands. Allies of the Business Secretary said he was not planning to resign.

Under Labour rules, the ex-minister can declare he is challenging the Prime Minister without securing the 81 names, and then wait to see if MPs come forward to back him. At that point, once 81 names are submitted, the ballot is triggered.

Streeting’s supporters insist he does already have the numbers but wants to have an open contest with as many people on the pitch – including Andy Burnham – so he can have a proper mandate to govern as PM.

Someone close to Streeting said the penultimate paragraph of his 998-word letter – in which he talked about the contest needing to be broad and have the “best possible field of candidates” – made clear why he did not want to challenge yet.

Any leader elected without allowing the best candidates to stand would lack legitimacy, they said, adding: “Wes doesn’t believe in stitch-ups.”

A separate source close to Streeting added in the wake of his decision to quit as health secretary: “He has been so frustrated about the lack of debate within Cabinet. He will now be in a position to lead the debate about what a proper Labour government, with proper Labour values, can do.”

And a third ally said Streeting is demanding the Prime Minister find a way to allow Burnham back into Parliament to allow a leadership contest to take place with “all the players on the pitch”.

“It’s principled,” one ally said.

‘Ball now in Starmer’s court’ as MP makes way for Burnham

“And the ball is now in Keir Starmer’s court to find a way back for Andy in short order.”

But there is nevertheless scepticism within the party about whether Streeting’s claim to want a full contest, that includes the incredibly popular Greater Manchester Mayor, is just a ruse because he calculates that Burnham would be blocked anyway by Labour’s ruling National Executive Committee (NEC) if he tried to get a seat.

A Labour insider said: “That is potentially what is happening, but I am choosing to take his words at face value – I think he has accepted he doesn’t have enough support and that an election without Andy having had the opportunity is a short-term win, long-term loss.”

Just after 5pm, it appeared that Burnham’s return to Westminster politics had moved a step closer – even though he still has many hurdles to overcome.

Josh Simons, the Labour MP for Makerfield, announced he was stepping down specifically in order to let Burnham stand for Parliament.

But Simons secured only a 5,399 majority in 2024, and with Reform UK – which won all the council seats in the area in last week’s elections – in second place, it is not certain that Burnham would win.

He also needs to have the green light from Labour’s NEC – who blocked him from a similar return earlier this year – to be able to stand as a candidate, and then would need to be selected as the party’s candidate.

And one party source suggested the chaos was reflecting badly on Labour and the Government, comparing it to an episode of Succession, the TV series about siblings warring over their father’s global media business, entitled “Shit Show at the F**k Factory.”

Streeting stokes Labour anger

A Labour staffer was more pointed: “He quite simply didn’t have the numbers and he knew it. I was told he had about 30 backbenchers and 50 ministers and that simply doesn’t take you to where you need to be. People aren’t going to resign for him.

“He can now be a gobby backbencher or maybe if he behaves himself, he can get back into Cabinet. That is the most he can hope for.”

A Cabinet source said: “The rest of the Cabinet were really cross about this and thought it had gone too far. He had marched too many people up the hill, to sacrifice themselves, for this not to be the final outcome.

“He spent most of last night trying to persuade Cabinet ministers to join him to force the PM into resigning but none would join him.”

But Streeting’s camp refuted the claim that he was calling Cabinet ministers as “totally false”, adding that most of the Cabinet had already told the Prime Minister he should go.

A left-wing Labour MP said: “He never stood a chance. We would’ve made his life a misery and the party ungovernable.”

A Labour insider said it would not be enough for Streeting to secure the backing of 81 Labour MPs, but that he would need the support of more than double that figure to show the party that he could govern well, without the risk of resentment from the back benches.

This de facto mandate was all the more important because Labour was in office, they said.

The insider said: “Eighty-one MPs is the absolute floor of even getting on to the playing field. But in a party where his side of things is in the minority in Parliament and even more so in the country, he needs to have momentum, not just the bare minimum.

“How quickly can he get to 150, 175? That’s what he would need to show the party [that] there is a growing consensus behind him.

“I appreciate the focus is on whether a contest happens, but we’re talking about the prime minister of the country, not just the leadership of the party.