STORY
Wes Streeting has resigned as Health Secretary after saying he has lost confidence in Sir Keir Starmer’s leadership and believes the Prime Minister cannot lead Labour into the next general election.
In his resignation letter, Streeting said he was proud of his record at the Department of Health and Social Care, pointing to a fall of 110,000 in waiting lists in March, improved ambulance and A&E performance, the recruitment of 2,000 more GPs and increased public satisfaction with the NHS. He said those achievements would normally be strong reasons to remain in post, but that it would be “dishonourable and unprincipled” to do so after losing confidence in Starmer.
Streeting said Labour’s election defeats across England, Scotland and Wales were unprecedented in both scale and consequence. He warned that nationalist parties were now in power across the UK and said Reform UK represented a threat both to the integrity of the United Kingdom and to the values Labour should defend.
He blamed the Government’s unpopularity on a series of policy and political mistakes, including the decision to cut the winter fuel allowance and the Prime Minister’s “island of strangers” speech. Streeting said these had left voters unclear about who Labour was and what it stood for.
Although he praised Starmer for leading Labour to victory in 2024 and for showing “courage and statesmanship” on the world stage, he said the Government now lacked vision and direction. Streeting called for a broad leadership contest based on ideas rather than personalities or factionalism, saying Labour needed the “best possible field of candidates” to decide what came next.