Keir Starmer has said he knows he has to “turn things around” after a series of crises culminating in the resignation of John Healey, the defence secretary, but warned that any successor would face the same set of difficult decisions.
In an interview with the BBC after Healey’s departure in a row over defence spending, Starmer promised again to fight any leadership challenge from Andy Burnham or others, saying: “I’m not going to go away.”
He also suggested said that if Burnham did replace him in No 10, there would be a near-identical set of pressures and tough decisions given the “prevailing winds” of international conflict in chaos, and the resulting effects on the economy.
Starmer said: “I would just gently say this, that whoever is prime minister is going to face the same prevailing winds as I am facing. None of that is going to change.”
In a scathing resignation letter on Thursday, Healey accused Starmer of putting the country’s security at risk and being unable to stand up to his chancellor, Rachel Reeves, and make faster progress in the coming defence investment plan (Dip) towards the plan to spend at least 3.5% of GDP on defence by 2035.
Al Carns, the armed forces minister, also quit. Speaking on Friday morning to the BBC, Carns accused the government of not spending enough money on the military and also spending on the wrong weapons.
With Burnham increasingly expected to win next Thursday’s Makerfield byelection and return to Westminster, many Labour MPs expect an imminent leadership challenge. It could also involve Wes Streeting, the former health secretary, who quit Starmer’s government last month in the wake of terrible election results for Labour.
Asked if he would lead Labour into the next general election, Starmer replied: “Well, that’s what I want to do. I recognise that, you know, I’ve got to turn things around. We had a very bad set of elections.”
Asked if he recognised he was in peril, the prime minister replied: “Look, I recognise that, given where we are, I need to turn that around and that’s what I intend to do.”
Earlier on Friday Starmer met the new defence secretary, Dan Jarvis, and Richard Knighton, chief of the defence staff, to discuss the Dip, which had been due this week but is delayed in a wrangle over spending totals.
Asked when it would come, a No 10 spokesperson said only that work was “ongoing to finalise the Dip at pace with the new defence secretary”, refusing to say if Jarvis had any input into the actual sums committed, or had sought any guarantees before accepting the post.
Starmer told the BBC that the plan would be “published before the Nato summit” in Ankara early next month. This was the final deadline for it to be released, suggesting the change of defence secretary could have caused new delays.
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