<\/p>\n
Wes Streeting arrives at the Progress Conference at Convene in London, Saturday May 16, 2026. (Jeff Moore\/PA via AP)<\/p>\n
Jeff Moore\/Jeff Moore\/PA via AP<\/p>\n
Wes Streeting speaks at the Progress Conference at Convene in London, Saturday May 16, 2026. (Jeff Moore\/PA via AP)<\/p>\n
Jeff Moore\/Jeff Moore\/PA via AP<\/p>\n
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer meets police officers to discuss operational planning, in London, Friday, May 15, 2026. (Peter Nicholls\/Pool Photo via AP)<\/p>\n
Peter Nicholls\/Peter Nicholls\/Pool Getty Images<\/p>\n
FILE – Andy Burnham, the Mayor of Manchester, arrives a fringe meeting during the annual Labour Party conference in Liverpool, England, Sept. 29, 2025.<\/p>\n
Jon Super\/AP Photo\/Jon Super<\/p>\n
LONDON (AP) \u2014 Wes Streeting’s ambition to head the British government was one of the worst-kept secrets in U.K. politics.<\/p>\n
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But if anyone was unaware, it’s now official \u2014 the former health secretary announced on Saturday his intention to oust Prime Minister Keir Starmer.<\/p>\n
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\u201cWe need a proper contest with the best candidates on the field, and I\u2019ll be standing,\u201d Streeting said.<\/p>\n
Streeting is the first member of Parliament to say he will take on Starmer in what is likely to be a bruising internal contest for the reins of the Labour Party, which has seen its fortunes fall in the two years since its historic landslide victory swept out Conservatives after 14 years in power.<\/p>\n
Streeting is likely to face other challengers, including Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham, if the latter can win a special election for a seat in the House of Commons that is expected to take place within the next few weeks.<\/p>\n
Starmer has vowed to fight on despite being widely unpopular after a series of setbacks, policy U-turns and questions over his judgment for appointing a friend of the sex offender Jeffrey Epstein as U.S. ambassador. The government is facing weeks of chaos after he rejected calls to resign following the party\u2019s disastrous results in the May 7 local and regional U.K. elections, in which Nigel Farage’s anti-immigrant Reform UK made huge gains.<\/p>\n
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\u201cThe voters did more than send Labour a message last week,” Streeting said on Saturday. “They issued a warning: that unless we change course, we risk being the handmaidens of Nigel Farage and the breakup of the United Kingdom.\u201d<\/p>\n
From working-class roots to a prestigious university<\/p>\n
The boyish-looking Streeting, 43, is widely regarded as one of the party’s best communicators and has been an outspoken voice on issues that include the war in Gaza.<\/p>\n
His rise in the ranks of the Labour Party from roots in London\u2019s working-class East End, where he grew up in public housing, is charted in his memoir, \u201cOne Boy, Two Bills and a Fry Up: A Memoir of Growing Up and Getting On.\u201d<\/p>\n
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The title refers to two grandfathers both named Bill: The one on his mother\u2019s side was associated with gangsters and served prison time for armed robbery; he credits the one on his father\u2019s side with leading him on the path to Cambridge University.<\/p>\n
Streeting got into politics at a young age, leading the Cambridge student union and becoming president of the National Union of Students. He later worked for Stonewall, an LGBTQ+ group, and has spoken of his struggle coming out as gay and reconciling his sexuality with his Anglican faith.<\/p>\n
He served as a councilor in local government and later deputy leader of the council in the east London borough of Redbridge before being elected to Parliament in 2015.<\/p>\n
He was a backbench lawmaker under Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, a veteran socialist whose time in charge saw the party lose two elections and face allegations of antisemitism in its ranks. Streeting, long critical of Corbyn, was promoted after Starmer took over as leader in 2020.<\/p>\n
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A Cabinet minister with a personal mission to save public health care<\/p>\n
Streeting\u2019s Cabinet position became a personal mission to fix an ailing National Health Service because of his own battle with kidney cancer.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe NHS saved my life,\u201d he said when he was named health secretary. \u201cToday, I can begin to repay that debt by saving our NHS.\u201d<\/p>\n
Even as Streeting was said to have an eye on a higher office, he stood by Starmer and denied having designs on replacing him.<\/p>\n
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But with Starmer on the ropes, maintaining that line became difficult last week.<\/p>\n
On Wednesday, as King Charles III was delivering the government\u2019s blueprint for the next couple of years during the ceremonial opening of Parliament, talk of a coup dominated headlines.<\/p>\n
\u201cStreeting to ignite Labour day of anarchy,\u201d the Daily Mail blared in all caps. \u201cFinally, a move to bring down \u2018Zombie\u2019 Keir?\u201d asked the Daily Express.<\/p>\n
Streeting quit the Cabinet the following day \u2014 becoming the first to do so \u2014 saying he had lost confidence in Starmer and sharply criticized him for lacking vision and direction. But he didn\u2019t immediately announce an anticipated showdown with Starmer.<\/p>\n
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He resigned on the same day he touted that waiting lines for medical appointments \u2014 one of his signature priorities \u2014 fell for the fifth straight month.<\/p>\n
Streeting distances himself from a party figure with ties to Epstein<\/p>\n
Generally regarded as being in the moderate wing of the left-leaning party, Streeting was friendly with Peter Mandelson, the once-influential Labour figure now in disgrace over his friendship with Epstein. Starmer appointed \u2014 and later sacked \u2014 Mandelson as U.S. ambassador, a decision that continues to haunt him.<\/p>\n
As controversy over the appointment was reignited earlier this year, Streeting preemptively released a clutch of email exchanges he\u2019d had with Mandelson in an attempt to show they were not close friends.<\/p>\n
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\u201cContrary to what has been widely reported, I was not a close friend of Peter Mandelson, but I am not going to wash my hands of my actual association with him either,\u201d he wrote in The Guardian.<\/p>\n
In one of the emails, he was critical of Starmer\u2019s leadership, writing that \u201cthere isn\u2019t a clear answer to the question: why Labour?\u201d<\/p>\n
Streeting will begin to lay out his answer to that question in the coming weeks.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Wes Streeting arrives at the Progress Conference at Convene in London, Saturday May 16, 2026. (Jeff Moore\/PA via…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":802744,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5133],"tags":[5229,240561,326810,15053,172282,17723,45981,2676,25930,184754,184755,45805,184750,326112,324520,7202,7203,358,3187,376,67,586,132,5230,68,2969,35039],"class_list":{"0":"post-802743","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-antonio","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-andy-burnham","10":"tag-britain-politics-streeting-starmer-prime-minister","11":"tag-jeffrey-epstein","12":"tag-jeremy-corbyn","13":"tag-keir-starmer","14":"tag-king-charles-iii","15":"tag-london","16":"tag-nigel-farage","17":"tag-package-100024-ap-online","18":"tag-package-100373-mc-complete-state-national","19":"tag-peter-mandelson","20":"tag-product-30598-ap-national-news-report-a-wire","21":"tag-product-32502-ap-online-europe-news","22":"tag-product-46986-ap-online-top-stories","23":"tag-san-antonio","24":"tag-sanantonio","25":"tag-texas","26":"tag-tx","27":"tag-united-kingdom","28":"tag-united-states","29":"tag-united-states-of-america","30":"tag-unitedstates","31":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","32":"tag-us","33":"tag-usa","34":"tag-wes-streeting"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":"Validation failed: Text character limit of 500 exceeded"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/802743","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=802743"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/802743\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/802744"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=802743"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=802743"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=802743"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}