Events move fast in Britain nowadays. Just as I finished writing this article, Sir Keir Starmer lost one of his most important ministers. When the news came in that his Defence Secretary, John Healey, had resigned, it was clear I’d have to go back to the beginning and start again.
Soon after, Minister of State for the Armed Forces Al Carns also announced his resignation in a letter posted to X, saying that the government is “failing” to give the armed forces what they need to do the job and the “loyalty to stand by them when it’s done.”
Because the loss of Healey and Carns has brought yet more urgency to the question of how long the prime minister can survive. Last month, the loss of his Health Secretary, Wes Streeting, opened up the issue of the leadership. Now the Defence Secretary, a man known for his loyalty to previous leaders of the party, claims that he was unable to get the increase in defence spending he requested owing to the weakness of his boss: "...you have been unable, and the Treasury has been unwilling, to commit the resources that the nation needs to defend the country at this time of rising threats."
This amounts to saying that Starmer has been unable to overrule his own Chancellor, Rachel Reeves. It also strikes at the heart of the one policy area for which the PM has been given credit, even by some of his political foes: the defence of the realm. His refusal to get involved in the war on Iran and his continued support, through resolute cooperation with European partners, for Ukraine’s struggle against Russia have been rare success stories in the two years since he came to power. This resignation, like the one that preceded it, will further chip away at Number Ten’s crumbling authority.
And yet, thus far, it is being called a shadow contest for the leadership. War is yet to be declared. Soon after his resignation, Wes Streeting made it clear he would stand if a contest took place. But he insisted that, despite having enough supporters to trigger it, he had deliberately held back.
The reason was simple. Putting in a bid for the leadership so early would have looked opportunistic, given the absence of his main rival for the job, Andy Burnham, the mayor of Greater Manchester, from parliament. By staying his hand until the outcome of the Makerfield byelection is known, Streeting was able to counter his reputation for ambition. He wanted a free and honest debate over ideas, he said. He then made a virtue of necessity by portraying himself as ‘the underdog’.
Since then, something curious has been happening in this shadowy, undeclared war of succession. Seen by the party, and in particular its members, as a figure on the right, Streeting has been moving steadily leftwards. He has spoken of the resistance he encountered over his views on Gaza, for instance. He has let it be known that he favours a wealth tax and wants to speed up the reform of social care in the country. He has suggested that some of Shabana Mahmood’s changes to immigration rules are too severe. Most momentously, and perhaps most cunningly, he has made it clear that he thinks Brexit was a mistake and that the country should return to the European fold at the first opportunity.
The cunning here is not something that his main rival can easily acknowledge. Andy Burnham is standing in Makerfield, a constituency that only a matter of weeks ago voted overwhelmingly in favour of Nigel Farage’s Reform UK. When Streeting opened up the can of worms that is Europe in the tenth anniversary of Britain’s departure, it was designed to embarrass his competitor.
No one wishing to breeze through a byelection and return to parliament can afford to antagonise their electorate. You have to be wary of taking them for granted. For that reason, Burnham has tried to avoid the silly notion that he cares only about Downing Street. He has spent a lot of his time speaking about local issues, such as flooding. He has even, as I jokingly predicted, been sharing their pain over potholes. The one local issue he cannot discuss is that they all voted Reform five minutes ago.
