Allies of Britain’s health secretary Wes Streeting were telephoning Labour Party MPs on Wednesday night asking them to back him in an imminent heave against UK prime minister Keir Starmer.
Streeting is said to be on the verge of leaving his government post, possibly on Thursday, to challenge Starmer, who says he will fight any attempt to unseat him.
A challenger needs a minimum of 81 MPs – roughly one fifth of Labour’s parliamentary party – to pledge their formal backing to trigger a leadership contest under party rules. Starmer is automatically entitled to enter the contest to defend his position.
Meanwhile, backers of another would-be challenger to Starmer, the Greater Manchester mayor Andy Burnham, were insisting he still had time to enter the race.
UK prime minister Keir Starmer (centre) during the debate on the king’s speech in the House of Commons in London on Wednesday. Photograph: House of Commons/PA Wire
Only sitting MPs are entitled to run for the Labour Party leadership, meaning Burnham would have to find an MP willing to stand aside.
He would then have to win the ensuing byelection.
One Burnham ally told The Irish Times that he still had “loads of time” to find a winnable seat, while others in Westminster were far more sceptical.
In recent days, several Labour MPs in seats in the northwest of England that were linked with Burnham said they would not give up their seat to let him run.
Greater Manchester mayor Andy Burnham. Photograph: Ryan Jenkinson/Getty
Marie Rimmer, the MP for St Helen’s South and Whiston in Merseyside, said she would not stand aside for the Manchester mayor.
Charlotte Nichols, the MP for Warrington North, said rumours she had agreed to make way for Burnham were “b*ll*cks”.
“I don’t know how many different ways I can say this but I’m not stepping aside for Andy Burnham,” she said.
“It’s both very tedious for me and very demoralising for my staff to keep seeing it reported that I might be about to go, when there’s never even been so much as a conversation with Andy about doing so.”
Labour sources said they believed another Labour MP whose seat was heavily-linked with Burnham, Navendu Mishra in Stockport, would not stand aside either. Another seat that was being linked with Burnham was that of Afzal Khan’s in the constituency Manchester Rusholme.
Even if Burnham manages to find a winnable seat – Reform UK could be expected to mount a heavy challenge to Labour in any byelection in Burnham’s northwest England purloin – the party’s national executive committee (NEC) would be in control of the timetable for a leadership contest.
Burnham would need the NEC’s officers committee, which includes several allies of Starmer and the prime minister himself, to effectively delay a contest to give him time to win a byelection and return to parliament.
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MPs loyal to the prime minister, meanwhile, believe Streeting, a standard bearer of the soft right of the Labour Party, could struggle to get the number of names required to trigger a contest, although his backers say the opposite.
Al Carns, a former royal marine who is the UK’s minister for the armed forces, is also said to be mulling entering a contest. He wrote an article in the New Statesman on Wednesday effectively laying out a leadership pitch.
“We do not need more slogans, strategies press releases or commissions. We need action,” said Carns.
Starmer, who is under pressure after Labour’s disastrous election showing last week, has warned a leadership contest now would plunge Britain into “chaos”.
However, close to 100 of his own MPs have already called on him to go.