LONDON — British Prime Minister Keir Starmer looks set to face the challenge he dared his mutinous party to produce.
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His health secretary Wes Streeting resigned Thursday, setting up a potential clash over the future of the United Kingdom and its ruling center-left Labour Party.
The prime minister is facing a rebellion from his own members of Parliament, triggered by losses during midterms-style local and regional elections last week, on top of a series of humiliating scandals that forced Starmer to sack several of his key allies.
Streeting said that Starmer “will not lead the Labour Party into the next general election” and that Britain requires “a bold vision and bigger solutions than we are offering.”
If Streeting is able to trigger a leadership contest by amassing support among the party’s MPs, several other figures are thought to be considering whether to enter the fray.
Here are the possible contenders.
Wes Streeting
The baby-faced health secretary, 43, hails from the centrist wing of the Labour Party and is seen as a razor-sharp communicator who has long harbored barely concealed ambitions for the top job.
He became the first mover on Thursday, quitting Starmer’s cabinet and expressing hope that the leader would “facilitate” a challenge.
He is seen as a “Blairite,” having professed admiration for Labour’s most successful postwar leader, Tony Blair, who dragged the party to the center.
Streeting’s views could prove a significant hurdle in garnering support from Labour’s membership, however, with left-wing factions within the party regarding him as too centrist or even right-wing.
There are also questions over the extent of his friendship with Peter Mandelson, the recently fired British ambassador in Washington. Mandelson was arrested for misconduct in public office in February over messages he allegedly exchanged with the late sex offender and financier Jeffrey Epstein. Streeting has denied a close friendship with Mandelson, and Mandelson has denied any wrongdoing.
Streeting has a “fascinating backstory,” said Tim Bale, a politics professor at Queen Mary University of London, despite his reputation that he “might be too centrist for many” in the party.
The grandson of a convicted bank robber, Streeting was born to teenage parents living in poverty in East London. He is gay and has spoken frequently about his Christian faith, unusual for a politician in relatively nonreligious Britain.
He has been the health secretary since Starmer’s landslide victory in June 2024. That means he is in charge of stewarding England’s beloved but creaking National Health Service (NHS), which provides treatment and care that’s free at the point of access.
Questioning the NHS funding model is heresy across much of Britain, but Streeting has said it needs to “modernize or die” and has advocated for using the “capacity” of private health care providers to ease the strain on the system. Streeting’s time in the job has also seen him frequently clash with striking health care workers, a potential hurdle in a party with deep ties to Britain’s trade unions.
Andy Burnham
Many of those in contention for the top job have been in Keir Starmer’s inner circle across his two tumultuous years in power. That’s not the case for Andy Burnham, who is outside Parliament, serving as the mayor of Greater Manchester.
Burnham, 56, is Britain’s most popular politician, according to polling from YouGov, with 35% of people holding a positive view of him.
He has won three consecutive terms in the city of Oasis and Manchester United soccer club, projecting a “soft left” politics that mixes progressive values with centrist electoral pragmatism.
He would be a firm favorite in an open contest, but he has one big problem: he is not currently eligible to run for leader, as he is not an MP in the House of Commons.
That means that another MP would have to step down, triggering a special election in which Burnham would have to win — a process that could take weeks, and with victory not a certainty given Labour’s dismal polling nationally.
When a vacancy in Parliament came up earlier this year, Burnham was blocked from standing by the party, with factional allies of Starmer seeking to keep a potential rival out of the way.
Whereas Streeting has focused on Britain’s international position, Burnham is “more focused on delivery for ordinary people,” according to David Henig, a director at the European Centre for Political Economy.
That revolves around his so-called Manchester Model, which has sought to incentivize investment, regeneration and innovation — something he calls “business-friendly socialism” — helping make his city the fastest growing region of the U.K.
If supporters of Streeting move quickly, they could force a contest in which Burnham is locked out from running. Streeting however said in his resignation letter Thursday that he supported a “broad” contest with “the best possible field of candidates.”
Burnham is “the perfect clean-skin candidate onto whom everyone can project their heart’s desires,” Bale said. “And likely to remain so forever if he can’t make it into Parliament.”
Angela Rayner
Also hailing from the party’s left is Starmer’s former deputy Angela Rayner, 46, an outspoken, straight-talking presence who served as an antithesis to his more staid character.
Rayner is a former carer and trade unionist who came from a deprived household in Stockport, near Manchester, and became a mother at 16.
Her red hair, northern English drawl and quick everyman wit sets her apart in a party often dominated by those who went straight into Westminster from the proving grounds of Oxford or Cambridge.
That has made her something of “a working-class heroine,” Bale said.
Rayner was popular as Starmer’s deputy, but she was forced to resign in September after a bruising scandal which saw her admit she did not pay enough tax on a second home.
She said this was accidental and based on bad legal advice, and on Thursday said she had been cleared of deliberate wrongdoing after a lengthy investigation by the tax authority HMRC.
The scandal dented her popularity, but the findings may clear the path for a leadership bid.
Ed Miliband
Perhaps an unlikely name to enter the fray is that of Ed Miliband, 56, Starmer’s leftist energy secretary and champion of Britain’s net-zero agenda.
Miliband putting his name in the running might raise some eyebrows because he has already led his party in opposition once before, facing a stinging election defeat at the hands of David Cameron’s Conservative Party in 2015. Cameron’s victory over Miliband paved the way for the Brexit referendum, blamed by many for the current perilous state of Britain’s finances.
As leader, Miliband was notably ridiculed for his awkward eating of a bacon sandwich. The viral photograph was splashed on front pages of Britain’s tabloids, with some seeing it as dog-whistle antisemitism against the Jewish leader frequently derided as “Red Ed.”
In a party eager to win the public back onside, it would be a gamble to reinstall a leader who has already been roundly rejected in an election — and doing so would likely lead to calls to bring forward the date of the next election, currently expected in 2029.
Keir Starmer stays put
Starmer, 63, is Britain’s most unpopular prime minister in modern history, polling shows. Critics, including former ministers, have accused Starmer of being slow to push through reforms and unambitious with his agenda for power.
Britain’s economy is stagnant, with no real wage growth since the global financial crisis of 2008. Reliance on gas means it is more exposed than its neighbors to the global economic shock stemming from the Iran war and the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz.
And yet, with all his main rivals having baggage or hurdles to clear, Labour MPs looking into the abyss of an uncertain contest could well conclude that it is better to stick than to twist.
Gravitational forces work in Starmer’s favor. Party rules make it harder to topple Labour leaders than under the right-wing Conservative Party, who speedily cycled through David Cameron, Theresa May, Boris Johnson, Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak in the rocky stretch between the 2016 Brexit vote and the 2024 election.
In part, that’s because just 15% of Conservative lawmakers needed to submit secret letters of “no confidence” to trigger a leadership contest. Under Labour, 20% of lawmakers must coalesce behind a specific candidate to trigger a contest, rather than merely signal their general disapproval with the status quo.
More than 100 Labour MPs earlier this week signed a letter in support of Starmer’s continued leadership. His loyalists say he has provided economic stability, if not prosperity, and has asserted himself on the international stage amid conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East. Britain’s markets have appeared shaky as rumors of a contest have swirled, which may give those who favor a more radical approach pause for thought.
“People are worried about current conflicts and looming global crises. They expect their government to lead the country through, as the PM is doing,” Defense Secretary John Healy wrote on X. “More instability is not in Britain’s interest. Our full focus now must be on dealing with immediate economic & security challenges.”
Someone else
Other candidates have been mooted for the leadership, though they remain outsiders.
They include Al Carns, 46, a charismatic former soldier and political newcomer who entered Parliament for the first time in 2024 and would be by far the least experienced figure in any contest.
Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper or Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood are both often mentioned as possible firm hands who could steer the party, though neither has shown much inclination to enter the fray this time round.
How a contest would work
Under Britain’s parliamentary system, a leadership challenge is an internal party process. This means it’s governed entirely by the Labour Party’s own rules, and Starmer would remain prime minister while a contest takes place.
Under party rules, Labour lawmakers in Parliament have the power to trigger a leadership contest. To do so, 20% of Labour’s 406 MPs would have to coalesce around at least one challenger.
Each candidate who wants to enter the race would need to meet the same threshold, though Starmer gets an automatic spot on the ballot paper if a contest is triggered and he chooses to fight on.
Those who meet that threshold proceed to a vote among paying Labour Party members and members of affiliated trade unions, usually a process that takes several weeks.
The winner of that vote is named Labour leader, and becomes prime minister.