Wes Streeting is being talked up to become Andy Burnham’s chancellor – as some MPs campaign to stop Ed Miliband from landing the job.
The jockeying comes after Burnham won the Makerfield by-election on Friday with 54.8 per cent of the vote, clearing his path to a widely anticipated challenge for the Labour leadership.
With Sir Keir Starmer weakened by a months-long crisis over the party’s direction and electoral fortunes, attention at Westminster has turned to who would run the Treasury – and replace Rachel Reeves as chancellor – in a possible Burnham government.
Multiple MPs have told The i Paper they believe Streeting is eyeing up the role, despite his public insistence that he intends to stand in any forthcoming leadership contest. Streeting quit his role as health secretary in Starmer’s Cabinet last month, having signalled he was prepared to mount his own bid to become prime minister.
One Burnham ally went further, suggesting that Streeting had pitched directly for the chancellorship when the two men met in Makerfield on 8 June – a claim denied by a source close to Streeting.
“Wes wants the job as chancellor, he said so to Andy when they met,” the ally said. “That doesn’t mean he will get it, but it does mean there is a glide path back to Health or another senior job.”
Streeting’s allies insist no deal has been struck with Burnham although the pair have met and spoken several times over recent weeks. Even so, some MPs are speculating that Streeting will fall in behind Burnham rather than trigger a contest – handing him a coronation – in return for a major cabinet post.
They believe Streeting has his eye on the Treasury after a keynote speech on the economy last week, in which he announced plans to tear up planning laws and reverse Miliband’s ban on new North Sea oil and gas exploration licences. “It was a naked pitch to become Burnham’s chancellor,” said one Labour MP.
With Rachel Reeves expected to be sacked by Burnham if he becomes PM, Streeting is widely seen as the candidate for chancellor the bond markets would fear least. Other names under consideration are understood to include Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood, Work and Pensions Secretary Pat McFadden and former defence secretary John Healey.
Miliband, the Energy Secretary, had been an early frontrunner, but as The i Paper revealed on Friday, Burnham was rethinking the idea. There is now a “concerted campaign” to stop him being appointed among some MPs and even within Burnham’s own camp, The i Paper has been told.
One minister said they had been approached by a Burnham ally over the weekend and asked to lobby Burnham directly to keep Miliband out of No 11.
“There is a concerted campaign to stop Ed becoming chancellor, because it would freak out the markets and because he is very stubborn on policy,” the minister said. “But there are also issues around some of the other people who could be viable picks. You could have John Healey, but then immediately you’d have to find loads of money for defence — which is why most people think Pat McFadden could come through the middle.”
On Sunday, left-wing trade unionists and bond traders found themselves in the unusual position of uniting to warn against a Miliband appointment.
Sharon Graham, general secretary of Unite – one of Labour’s biggest union backers – told The Observer that Burnham would put “a noose around the neck” of job creation if he made Miliband chancellor.
While she said she supported the “direction of travel” set out by the new MP for Makerfield, she warned that Miliband’s determination to pursue strict net zero targets “at all costs” made him the wrong choice for the Treasury.
In the City, James Athey, a gilt trader at Marlborough Group, warned that government borrowing costs would rise if Miliband were appointed, because markets would read it as “a leftward shift.”
“Relative to Rachel Reeves, absolutely, I think there would be a Miliband premium on gilt yields,” he told The i Paper.
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