Downing Street’s sudden and brutal assault on Wes Streeting has left the Government, the Labour Party and Westminster in turmoil. But I’m not entirely sure why.
The Prime Minister’s premiership has effectively been over since June, when his MPs turned against him and rejected the welfare reforms that formed the centrepiece of his administration’s fiscal and political agenda.
From that moment, the writing from his backbenchers was on the wall. And they were telling him: ‘Thanks for the election win. Now, do one.’
Though in truth, the doubts about Starmer’s leadership began to fester well before then. The Sue Gray debacle. The constant globe-trotting. The failure to set a clear political direction. Suitgate. The ‘island of strangers’ speech fiasco. The car crash that is the Government’s economic strategy. Or non-strategy.
What we are now witnessing is the beginning of the end-game of Keir Starmer’s benighted and increasingly rudderless leadership of our nation. On one level, I have some sympathy for him, and his embattled and erratic advisers. This morning Labour MPs are taking to the airwaves to condemn No 10 for having the temerity to brief against Health Secretary Wes Streeting. Even though those same MPs have spent the summer openly expressing their disdain for the Prime Minister and his Downing Street operation.
But the game’s the game. And it began in earnest last week with a seemingly innocuous tweet by the Health Secretary. In the hours after a radical socialist secured victory in the New York mayoral election, Streeting took to Twitter to proclaim: ‘Inspirational campaign and victory for Zohran Mamdani in NYC. Lessons for progressives the world over.’
This entreaty to ‘learn lessons’ was perceived by Starmer’s aides – correctly – as a thinly veiled dig at the PM’s own lacklustre performance. As well as an unsubtle exercise by Streeting in showing some progressive ankle to Labour’s activist base.
The end game for Keir Starmer’s premiership began in earnest last week with a seemingly innocuous tweet from Health Secretary Wes Streeting, left, writes Dan Hodges
The tweet earned Streeting a public rebuke from Sir Keir’s chief of staff Morgan McSweeney
The result was a vicious public slap-down for Streeting from Morgan McSweeney, Sir Keir’s chief of staff. If Streeting – or any other challenger – attempted to unseat the Prime Minister, Starmer would fight them tooth and nail, journalists were briefed. Any move against him would also unsettle the markets and potentially precipitate a financial crisis.
Today there is widespread incredulity across Parliament at the clumsiness of McSweeney’s attack. But his critics are missing the point. The Prime Minister’s most senior adviser is an old hand at this stuff. He knew precisely the furore it would precipitate.
But McSweeney has now reached the point where he feels he has nothing to lose. Inside No 10 they know what’s coming. The Budget in two weeks will prove a political catastrophe. When Reeves and Starmer are shown to have lied to the Britain with their pledge not to raise taxes on working people, McSweeney fully recognises he and his boss will have reached the point of no return – and that it will be a matter of when, not if, the plotters move.
So this is how it will play out. Starmer – as is his modus operandi – will decide he has to sacrifice McSweeney in a final desperate attempt to save himself. Indeed, there is now a recognition among MPs, and even some of McSweeney’s allies, that he is going to have to fall on his sword. ‘Morgan’s toast,’ one admitted to me. ‘McSweeney has to go,’ an influential backbencher agreed.
And he will. But it will not stop the bleeding. Because McSweeney’s briefing, with its focus on Streeting, has effectively given licence for all the other leadership candidates to break cover. Over the next few days, we will see a series of well-meaning, more-in-sorrow-than-in-anger articles, interviews and speeches from Manchester mayor Andy Burnham, defenestrated ex-PM Angela Rayner, new Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood and energy zealot Ed Miliband.
Meanwhile Streeting will bask in the criticism, and attempt to rise serenely above the whole affair, with his own interviews, in which he will piously declare he cannot foresee any circumstances where he would challenge Keir Starmer, and how his only focus is on the health and wellbeing of the citizenry.
Manchester mayor Andy Burnham is among those who it is believed could challenge for the Labour leadership
But in reality the campaign to replace Starmer will begin in earnest. And while that may make for great spectator sport for us Westminster-watchers, it will spell disaster for the country. Because between now and the day Sir Keir is finally ousted, no one in Government is going to give two hoots for the country.
The sole focus for Cabinet ministers and MPs is now going to be their party’s leadership succession. And those who aspire to replace Sir Keir are aware of this simple political reality. The thoughts, aspirations and wishes of the British people are now irrelevant. To become Prime Minister, all they have to focus on are the thoughts, aspirations and wishes – not to mention votes – of the Labour activists who will select Starmer’s replacement.
So over the following weeks and months, the governance of the country will become nothing more than a backdrop to Labour’s unofficial, and increasingly fractious, leadership campaign. Public policy will be assessed and crafted through the prism of whether it will appeal to Labour members, not the wider country. And as it does, Britain will begin a slow, inexorable and ultimately catastrophic drift to the Left.
All of which will have the effect of making Keir Starmer nothing but a passenger to what remains of his ill-fated political voyage.
There was a moment last week that perfectly summed up the current state of his premiership. As the rest of the Government struggled to contain the fall-out from the erroneous release from prison of another foreign sex offender, the Prime Minister’s media team sent out a social media post from the COP-30 climate summit in Brazil. It featured Sir Keir wandering alone – and to the uncharitable eye, utterly lost – through the rainforest. As one minister said to me: ‘It’s like he’s given up. It’s almost impossible to get any focus on the domestic agenda any more. All he’s really interested in is foreign affairs.’
There is a lot of excited chatter that Starmer’s political demise could be imminent. Some MPs are now saying that if the backlash against the Budget is as great as some are predicting, he could even be forced out this side of Christmas.
Allies of Streeting are urging swift action, because they believe a speedy contest would prevent Andy Burnham – perceived as Streeting’s main challenger – from lining up the parliamentary seat he needs to run.
But this is fantastical thinking. McSweeney will be offered up as the necessary sacrifice, Starmer’s MPs will be momentarily placated, there will be talk of yet another relaunch and reset.
And then the process will begin again. Westminster’s dance of death. Starmer will stumble, the pack will gather. He will stumble again, the pack will close in. He will stumble a final time. The pack will pounce.
Next year’s local elections will prove to be the moment of reckoning. But they are six long months away. Six months during which Britain will be effectively held to ransom by Labour’s fratricidal MPs.
Everyone knows how this ends now. The best thing they could do – for both Sir Keir and the country – is get on with it, and put us all out of our misery.
