Streeting arrives at No 10 for crunch talks with Starmer as unions pull support

Health Secretary Wes Streeting has arrived at Downing Street for crunch talks with Sir Keir Starmer as the Prime Minister faces calls to resign.

The talks with Mr Streeting, seen as one of the key rivals for the Labour leadership, come after Sir Keir managed to see off an immediate threat on Monday despite ministerial resignations and at least 80 MPs calling for him to quit.

But on Tuesday morning, unions pulled their support, saying it is clear that Sir Keir will not lead Labour into the next election.

Sir Keir’s camp has suggested there is no consensus in Labour about having a leadership contest.

Cabinet office minister Nick Thomas-Symonds told broadcasters Monday had been “turbulent” for the Prime Minister, but that MPs had not united behind a candidate to trigger a contest, adding “we are moving on”.

Sir Keir Starmer managed to cling on to power in Number 10 and see off an immediate threat to his leadership, with reports suggesting the front runners to succeed him lack the numbers to launch a challenge.

On Wednesday, he will meet Mr Streeting, seen as one of the key challengers to his leadership from the right of the party, ahead of the King’s Speech.

According to The Guardian, the Health Secretary was backing down from launching an immediate leadership bid.

Greater Manchester mayor Andy Burnham, a leading figure from the soft-left of the party, has not unveiled a path back into Parliament. He needs an MP willing to stand aside so he could fight a by-election.

Sources close to Energy Secretary Ed Miliband, another potential soft-left challenger, have denied reports that he is preparing to run if Mr Streeting triggers a contest.

The Prime Minister has sought to push on, already having replaced four ministers – including prominent MP Jess Phillips and health minister Zubir Ahmed, an ally of Mr Streeting – who quit the Government and called for Sir Keir to stand down.

In Tuesday’s Cabinet meeting, the Prime Minister vowed to fight on, and was publicly backed by several ministers at the top of Government, including his deputy David Lammy, who urged colleagues to “step back and take a breath”.

Sir Keir told his Cabinet the country “expects us to get on with governing” and “that is what I am doing”, but avoided being directly challenged as he declined to discuss his leadership during the gathering or meet critics individually afterwards, the Press Association understands.

He said he would only speak to ministers one-to-one about his fate, but did not do so once Cabinet concluded, according to sources.

While Mr Streeting is not expected to say anything after Wednesday’s meeting that could distract from the King’s Speech, Politico reported that Buckingham Palace had privately told Number 10 they do not want the King to be dragged into the conversation.

The importance of protecting Charles from the impression that he is being used for political ends was stressed to Sir Keir’s officials, a person familiar with the matter told the political news outlet.

It is understood there has been no suggestion that the opening of Parliament would not go ahead.

Authority

Zubir Ahmed, who resigned as a health minister and called for Sir Keir Starmer to resign on Tuesday, said Cabinet members who are privately dissatisfied with the Prime Minister need to say so publicly.

The Glasgow South West MP, who is an ally of Health Secretary Wes Streeting, said the situation was “unsustainable”.

Speaking on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, he said: “I think it is very telling, just as ministers have stepped forward in the junior ministerial ranks to articulate their dissatisfaction – some of us publicly, but more of us privately – that the whole of the Cabinet has not, on this occasion, been able to articulate support for the Prime Minister in the full-throated way that perhaps would have had happened in the past.

“I think, therefore, that there is a responsibility in all of us, on all of us, in parliamentary ministerial office to be honest with ourselves and with the Prime Minister at this time.”

He went on: “I think people who are articulating their dissatisfaction with the Prime Minister in private, they do have a responsibility to say that in public and directly to him, because this situation is unsustainable. It is now unstable and I think, therefore, we do need an expedient and orderly transition.”

Zubir Ahmed said Sir Keir Starmer’s authority had “irretrievably ebbed away” following the election results last week.

The NHS transplant surgeon told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “We, in Scotland, as in the rest of the UK, had a devastating set of election results and we were simply unable to articulate our offering, or indeed critique, of the SNP government because of the noise created at the centre.

“Therefore, we became, and the Prime Minister became, the inadvertent midwife of a fifth-term SNP government. And that scenario you saw then, people waiting for a speech to try and articulate his new direction, a strategy, and it simply was not forthcoming.

“And you saw thereafter, a spontaneous outpouring of frustration by colleagues in the PLP.

“In that scenario, someone like me, as a minister, and his government, has a responsibility to reflect upon whether this is sustainable, and as you see I made the diagnosis that it was not, and the Prime Minister’s authority has irretrievably ebbed away, and I think, therefore, for the stability of the country, and for the urgency that’s been called upon for us to act upon, and in an urgent way, with the public, he must set out a timetable for his departure, an orderly, expedient transition.”

When challenged over whether the reaction among Labour MPs had been “spontaneous”, he went on: “This is not one faction of the Labour Party. This is about the Labour Party articulating, I think, now a commonly-held view that this is unsustainable and unstable.”