David Milliken
Updated ,first published
London: Former health minister Wes Streeting said he would challenge Keir Starmer in any leadership contest held, days after stepping down and urging the British prime minister to set a timetable for his departure.
“We need a proper contest with the best candidates on the field, and I will be standing,” Streeting told a conference of the Progress group of Labour supporters, who view themselves as being on the modernising wing of the party.
Addressing the group, Streeting described Britain’s 2016 referendum decision to leave the European Union as “a catastrophic mistake” that had made the country its weakest since before the Industrial Revolution. He said the UK should seek to rejoin the bloc.
“We need a new special relationship with the EU, because Britain’s future lies with Europe, and one day – one day – back in the European Union,” he said.
Starmer opposed Britain leaving the EU, but as prime minister, has rejected trying to rejoin or to make major concessions on areas like immigration, which the EU sees as essential for much closer economic ties.
Late on Thursday, Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham said he was standing for election in a newly vacant seat to return to parliament, a precondition for him to be able to challenge Starmer as prime minister. Though Burnham was blocked from running for a seat earlier this year, Labour’s executive body has said he can this time in the special election expected within weeks.
Labour party rules require each challenger to get support from at least 20 per cent of the party’s members of parliament before being able to trigger a leadership election. This means they would need the backing of 81 of Labour’s 403 members. Starmer would automatically be entitled to run.
Streeting insisted he had enough support to trigger a contest, but suggested he would “lack legitimacy” without Burnham having a chance to return to parliament.
Others said to be considering running in any leadership contest are former deputy prime minister Angela Rayner, armed forces minister Al Carns and former party leader Ed Miliband.
Starmer has rejected calls to step down after Labour haemorrhaged votes to both the anti-immigrant Reform UK party on the right and the Green Party on the left in local and regional elections last week.
Streeting said the future of the UK was at stake in the next general election and that Labour risked being “the handmaidens of [Reform UK’s] Nigel Farage” if the party did not heed the electorate’s warnings last week.
As the leadership ructions continued, tens of thousands of people marched through central London in two separate protests – one against high levels of immigration and a perceived Islamic threat to British identity, and another in support of Palestinians.
Police deployed 4000 officers, including reinforcements from outside the capital, and pledged “the most assertive possible use of our powers” in what they called their biggest public order operation in years.
They arrested 43 people for a range of offences but described both protests as “largely without significant incident”. They had earlier forecast turnout of at least 80,000.
Starmer on Friday accused organisers of the Unite the Kingdom march of “peddling hate and division, plain and simple”.
Concern over immigration – including the arrival of asylum seekers on small boats – has weighed on Starmer’s popularity and boosted the populist right Reform UK party.
“I think that too much migration – not migration, but too much migration – is causing a lot of problems, upsetting a delicate balance here,” said march attendee Allison Parr, who also criticised net-zero environmental policies.
Reuters, AP
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