Wes Streeting’s resignation letter to Keir Starmer is an enigma wrapped in a mystery. It is a classic of its type: a statement written almost entirely in Labour code, which never openly states any of its core messages but relies on context, absence and euphemism to impart its meaning. But there is, no matter how opaque it appears, meaning in there. He has provided the first glimpse of a shared approach to leadership change among Starmer’s opponents.
Until now, the Prime Minister’s main defence has been the division of his enemies. Obviously, his potential challengers were divided on who they wanted to succeed him. But more importantly, they were also divided on the process by which he would be replaced. Streeting wanted a quick one, which would allow him to run before Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham could get back into Parliament.
Burnham, for obvious reasons, wanted the opposite. Until that fundamental issue is resolved, soft-left support cannot concentrate around a candidate. It means Angela Rayner and Ed Miliband are in contorted, hesitant positions, not knowing where they stand. A contest without Burnham naturally pushes them backward, one without him pushes them forward.
This situation began to resolve itself today. Once you battled your way through the formalities of the Streeting resignation later, one passage stood out.
“It is now clear,” he wrote, “that you will not lead the Labour Party into the next general election and that Labour MPs and Labour unions want the debate about what comes next to be a battle of ideas, not of personalities or petty factionalism. It needs to be broad, and it needs the best possible field of candidates.”
For all the nonsense rumours and the herd movements of this week, that is a concrete moment with concrete meaning. It is a very clear sign that Starmer’s critics are now starting to share a view on the process for replacing him. This puts us in a fundamentally different position to where we were earlier this week. And it means that time is running out for Starmer.
Why did Streeting write that? God knows. Perhaps he really believes it. People will scoff at this, but politicians really do have principles and they hold tightest to those principles which suit their self-interest. If Streeting has a head on his shoulders, he’ll know that the only way a figure on the right of the parliamentary party can manage it as leader is to win in a full and fair engagement with the soft left. A quick and dirty coup was never in his long-term interest even if it was in his short-term interest.
Alternatively, it may be tactical. Perhaps he doesn’t have the 81 MPs needed to start a leadership challenge. If so, he may be able to secure them by encouraging the soft left to help him kick-start a leadership process.
Perhaps he is actually targeting Burnham – effectively encouraging him to break cover and confirm whether he is or is not coming back, so that a leadership contest can begin. Or perhaps he is working with him, in tandem, the two teams jointly agreeing how a timetable might work as a way of forcing Starmer out and breaking the deadlock.
We don’t know. What we do know is that Starmer’s critics now agree broadly on a process. The one candidate whose incentives pointed towards a quick stitch-up has given up on the idea and accepted that a bigger, broader and possibly longer system is needed. That might be months long and involve Burnham getting back into parliament. Or it might be shorter and involve Rayner or Miliband instead. But either way, the right and the soft left of the party are now speaking the same language of Starmer opposition.
This obviously all looks very chaotic and dispiriting. It’s easy to lose all sense of hope in sober progressive government when it seems to behave just like the drunken reactionary government which preceded it. It’s frustrating to watch a devastating story about Nigel Farage’s £5 million gift disappear because it cannot compete with the drama in the government.
But let’s be realistic about where we are. This is happening. Starmer is finished. If he was ever going to demonstrate the vision and the capacity for change it would have been in his speech on Monday morning and he failed. It is simply not possible for a Labour prime minister to maintain authority when nearly 100 of their MPs have called on them to go, senior Cabinet figures are resigning, and the unions have turned against them. Whatever we might individually think of Starmer, it’s over. So the question is not whether it should be done but how it is done.
This must not happen again. The next leader must succeed and must establish a firm and broad power base in the party. They must show they have the ideas and the quality to govern. It is therefore encouraging that even the man whose incentives pointed towards a quick and cynical process has now accepted that it needs to be more restrained and meaningful. It offers the best chance of a decent outcome.
For all the smoke and the gunfire, things are gradually becoming clearer. Starmer’s opponents are slowly reaching a joint position on process. And that changes everything.
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