Wes Streeting is preparing to quit as health secretary and could launch a formal challenge for the Labour leadership as early as Thursday, allies said, after a brief meeting with Keir Starmer on Tuesday morning at No 10 before the king’s speech.
A source close to Streeting said he was planning to resign on Thursday and then mount a bid for the leadership. Two other MPs said they were called by allies of Streeting on Tuesday evening and told: "He’s going for it." The move, if it comes, would turn a week that was meant to showcase government priorities into a direct test of Starmer’s authority.
The numbers remain the central obstacle. Downing Street insiders said Streeting did not yet have the 81 MPs needed to formally trigger a leadership contest, even as allies said he could be ready to move as soon as Thursday. A second MP close to the Streeting camp said people around him had been working to get the numbers needed to force a contest, though the moment of reckoning had not yet arrived.
Streeting has tried to project calm in public. On social media, he posted: "Under Labour, NHS waiting lists are falling, ambulances are arriving faster, there are more GPs, and higher patient satisfaction." He also wrote: "The Health Bill will boost the impact of our investment and modernisation: cutting bureaucracy to invest in patient care." That message pointed to the wider backdrop of Starmer’s effort to put education, health and courts reform at the centre of his agenda after the king’s speech.
But the public optimism jarred with the private briefing around him. A source close to Streeting said the idea that Starmer had already seen off a putsch was "laughable," and argued that certainty would not come until the formal threshold was met. The same source said: "No one has the numbers till the bell is struck, even canvassing isn’t real, people need certainty before they write their name down. But he thinks he’s got the numbers," a line that underlined how much of the contest is still being fought in whispers rather than open declarations.
For Starmer, the threat matters because it lands at a moment when he is trying to show discipline after the king’s speech, not manage a challenge from inside his own ranks. For Streeting, it is a gamble on whether private doubts inside Labour can be turned into a public leadership race by Thursday. The next decisive step is simple: either he crosses the threshold and moves against the prime minister, or he stays below it and the talk around him remains talk.
