Starmer vows to fight on as Streeting’s allies deny leadership challenge

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Sir Keir Starmer is prepared to fight off any leadership challenge, his allies insisted on Tuesday night, as pressure mounts on his floundering government ahead of a crucial Budget this month. 

With cabinet discipline under heavy strain, allies of health secretary Wes Streeting were forced to issue a “categorical” denial that he intended to challenge Starmer for the Labour leadership.

One minister described the briefings by the UK prime minister’s allies about the risks of a possible coup as “mad”, adding: “Why would you want to create a leadership crisis two weeks before the Budget?”

Chancellor Rachel Reeves is poised to announce major tax rises in the November 26 Budget to plug a fiscal shortfall of up to £30bn, including an expected breach of the party’s manifesto promise not to increase income tax. 

Starmer is scrambling to boost his government’s fortunes ahead of elections next year in Wales, Scotland and parts of England, when Labour is expected to lose heavily. His allies made it clear that he would be determined to fight on even if there were setbacks at the Budget or at May’s local elections.

One said: “Would he fight a challenge? Of course. Would any challenge be irresponsible? Yes. But the government is focused on delivering on people’s priorities.”

They point out that under his leadership Labour won its biggest election victory since Tony Blair’s 1997 election landslide.

Both Starmer’s allies and Reeves herself have warned of market chaos if the party launched a round of fratricide after the Budget, a fiscal event intended to stabilise the British economy.

To launch a leadership challenge, rebels would need 80 signatures — a fifth of Parliamentary Labour party members — in support of a named challenger. Such a rebellion against a sitting prime minister has never been realised in Labour’s century-long history. 

One Labour veteran told the FT that names were circulating for a challenge to the leader. “I’ve heard some saying they have the numbers . . . I think it’s more in despair than co-ordinated though,” they said. 

Hostility towards Starmer is rising as Labour languishes at just 18 per cent in the polls, far behind Nigel Farage’s rightwing populist Reform UK party. “He’s the worst Labour prime minister of my lifetime,” said one MP on Tuesday night.

But others take a more balanced view of the leader who took the party from abject defeat in 2019 against the Conservative party to victory in July 2024. 

“Keir has earned the right to go when he wants to go. But he’s running out of road with the PLP and he will probably be faced with that choice sooner than he would have liked,” said one sympathetic Labour figure.

“Forcing him out through the rule book is almost impossible and would make everyone look like idiots because they would fail. So the only way there is a change is if he comes to the conclusion himself,” they added.

Backbench MPs have started to openly discuss whether Starmer’s leadership could be at risk after the Budget.

Potential future Labour leaders are thought to include Streeting, former deputy prime minister Angela Rayner, home secretary Shabana Mahmood or even energy secretary Ed Miliband, who led the party from 2010 to 2015.

Andy Burnham, the mayor of Greater Manchester, has expressed an interest in the top job in recent months but is not currently an MP, making any route to power more complicated. 

Meanwhile Starmer’s allies are nervous that Lucy Powell, whom he sacked from the cabinet but who was this month elected the party’s deputy leader, could help co-ordinate a future coup. 

One MP said Streeting — previously outwardly loyal to Starmer — has been openly critical of Downing Street to MPs he would not usually talk to in Westminster over recent weeks.

Allies of Streeting insisted he is not on manoeuvres, saying he had been caught off-guard on Tuesday by a briefing that suggested he was plotting against the prime minister.

One report suggested he was prepared to mount a leadership bid as soon as next month, with 50 frontbenchers willing to step down if necessary to oust Starmer.

“Wes has been one of the top three most consistently loyal cabinet ministers during Starmer’s premiership, so it’s really frustrating that this is what is being briefed,” one ally said.

A spokesperson for Streeting said: “These claims are categorically untrue. Wes’s focus has entirely been on cutting [hospital] waiting lists for the first time in 15 years, recruiting 2,500 more GPs and rebuilding the NHS that saved his life.”

In an attempt to defuse the situation one Downing Street official described Streeting as a “brilliant health secretary”.

Streeting will face a barrage of awkward questions in media interviews on Wednesday morning, while Starmer will later appear at Prime Minister’s Questions at lunchtime.

One MP said that Downing Street was being “paranoid” and turning on loyal cabinet members for no good reason.

Another said the counter-briefings would only prove to be damaging to the party: “Everyone looks nuts,” he said. 

Additional reporting by Jennifer Williams