LATEST: Is Wes Streeting about to resign?

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Story – Is Wes Streeting about to resign?

Date: May 13, 2026
Host: Manveen Rana (The Times)
Guests: John Pienaar (Times Radio), Aubrey Allegretti (The Times Political Correspondent), Anna Mihailova (The Times Political Editor)

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Overview

This urgent episode addresses breaking political turmoil in Westminster, centering on reports that Wes Streeting (Health Secretary) has told allies he plans to resign and challenge Keir Starmer for Labour leadership. Against the backdrop of the King’s state opening of Parliament, The Times team dissects the fast-moving crisis threatening Labour's stability and Starmer's credibility, examining the prospects, risks, and key players in the possible leadership contest.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

The Breaking News: Wes Streeting's Imminent Resignation

• News Unveiled: The Times reports Wes Streeting is preparing to resign and mount a leadership challenge against Keir Starmer, throwing Labour into deeper turmoil just as Parliament reconvenes.
• Downing Street Visit: Streeting's brief, pointed visit to Downing Street intensifies speculation about his intentions.

  “Streeting dropped by Downing Street earlier today and stayed a bare 17 minutes, not barely long enough for coffee, but more than enough to leave us all with one firm impression. He surely had to resign, didn't he?”
  — John Pienaar (02:46)

• Labour in Disarray: The party appears leaderless and dysfunctional in the wake of this news, with Starmer's authority weakened at a critical moment.

Behind the Scenes: How the Challenge is Taking Shape

• MPs Canvassed: Streeting's team is working in real time to amass the required 81 Labour MP nominations needed for a formal challenge.

  “Labour MPs are being canvassed and asked if they'll sign the nomination papers for him.”
  — Aubrey Allegretti (04:30)

• Uncertainty Remains: While there's confidence among Streeting’s allies, it’s unclear if the support threshold is yet met; risk that moderate Labour MPs, despite aligning with Streeting, fear dividing the party and inadvertently handing victory to a more left-wing candidate.

  “They say he would lose a Labour leadership election to a candidate of the left... So even by triggering this contest, they have a huge amount to lose.”
  — Aubrey Allegretti (05:36)

Andy Burnham’s Role and the Mechanics of a Leadership Contest

• Burnham as Possible Rival: Burnham, considered a leading alternative, is indecisive about whether and how to return to Westminster, complicated by local election dynamics and uncertainty over Labour’s internal approval for his candidacy.

  “Andy Burnham still hasn't decided whether he wants to come back, where he's going to go. And even if he does, it's not entirely clear that he would have the sort of red carpet rolled out for him by Labour’s NEC.”
  — Aubrey Allegretti (06:50)

Starmer's Precarious Position in the Commons

• Painful PM: Starmer appears beleaguered during the King’s Speech debate, with his cabinet stony-faced and subdued amid speculation about Streeting’s intentions.
• Cabinet Mood: Ministers are observed going through the motions, their calm outward demeanour masking deep fractures.

  “Painted a big smile on her face, so obviously just keeping on carrying on, but so clearly showing that it was just papering over cracks.”
  — Anna Mihailova (09:53)

The Specter of the Trade Unions

• Historic Move: For the first time, all Labour-affiliated trade unions openly call for Starmer’s resignation before the next election, amplifying internal pressures and giving MPs cover for rebellion.

  “That move was hugely significant this morning. As one of them said to me, it gives colleagues cover to then basically support any move against the Prime Minister when they see... what the unions have done.”
  — Anna Mihailova (13:00)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Labour’s Dysfunction:

  "The Labour Party [looks] dysfunctional, the Commons is something of a circus and our politics is rather a basket case.”
  — John Pienaar (02:46)

• On Cabinet Reactions:

  “The Cabinet was just sitting absolutely stony faced, really listening to this because of course that's all they could do.”
  — Anna Mihailova (08:34)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• [01:52] Introduction by Manveen Rana, summary of the day’s intrigue
• [02:46] John Pienaar sets the scene and explains the gravity of Streeting's move
• [04:17] Aubrey Allegretti describes Streeting's actions and leadership challenge mechanics
• [06:50] Streeting's support and Andy Burnham's uncertain role discussed
• [08:21] Anna Mihailova on Starmer’s position in Parliament and cabinet mood
• [13:00] Impact of Labour-affiliated unions calling for Starmer’s resignation
• [13:29] Episode wrap-up and handover back to Manveen Rana

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Summary

The episode captures a frenetic and historic day in British politics, marked by the apparent brink of a Labour leadership contest. Wes Streeting’s maneuvering sets off cascading doubts about Starmer’s leadership, while rival camps – including the unpredictable Andy Burnham – gauge their chances amid Labour’s fractured loyalties. With public union opposition to the leader and open speculation about when, not if, Streeting will move, the episode highlights the Labour Party’s volatile state at a pivotal Parliamentary session – raising urgent questions about who will lead the party into the next election.

Transcript

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[Manveen Rana]

Hi, it's Manveen. It's been yet another day of frenzied political intrigue in the corridors of Westminster, just before the king arrived for the state opening of Parliament. Amid all the pomp and pageantry, the gleaming royal carriage and a horseback procession, Westminster was already abuzz with the news broken by the Times that Wes Streeting had told allies he was preparing to resign as health secretary tomorrow to trigger a leadership contest. With so much going on, we thought you'd want to hear all the latest in this extra afternoon episode of the Story. And for that, we're handing over to our Times radio colleague John Pienaar, a man who's reported on many a leadership coup.

[John Pienaar]

Starmer's friends and followers and staff were celebrating last night, thought they'd seen off a challenge to his leadership. It sounds like their judgment was off, and not for the first time where Streeting Dropped by Downing street earlier today and stayed a bare 17 minutes, not barely long enough for coffee, but more than enough to leave us all with one firm impression. He surely had to resign, didn't he? And now according to the Times, he will and run for the leadership into the bargain maybe as soon as tomorrow. Offering himself no doubt as a solution to Labour's problems and in the process compounding Sir Keir Starmer's crisis of credibility. Painfully so as our Parliament begins a brand new session today, the looks rudderless, the Labour Party dysfunctional, the Commons is something of a circus and our politics is rather a basket case. Apart from that, according to Ministers everything is fine. Well at least the King looked like he knew what he was doing. Opening the new session of Parliament from the throne earlier today. That was far easier, well, at least for him, far easier than his beautifully judged and diplomatic address to the US Congress just a couple of weeks ago though with more duels and no standing ovations for Keir Starmer opening the debate just a short while ago on the government's program in the comments it must, you'd have thought, have been agony and if it wasn't, well, he can't have been paying attention to the hollow shell that his premiership has become over the last 48 hours. So let's first of all catch up with Aubrey Allegretti, the political correspondent at the Times. Hello to you Aubrey.

[Aubrey Allegretti]

Good afternoon John.

[John Pienaar]

What a day, Aubrey. I mean started off with, with west street and going in and out of Downing street pretty much before you could blink and now the word is from you and your colleagues that we're going for it. And of course he has to, doesn't he?

[Aubrey Allegretti]

Well it seems to be that the west treating is very much laying the ground for both resigning as Health Secretary and launching a leadership challenge about an hour before the official state opening of Parliament and the King taking to the throne in the House of Lords we revealed that the health treating had told allies just that and he's since sought to sort of put on a sort of demonstration of support for the Prime Minister insofar as he's been sitting I think 8 alongside him on the front bench in the House of Commons. There was a sort of wry smile and a sort of cheeky raising of the eyebrows when the Prime Minister made a joke about lists which of course will be interpreted by some as being about West Reading's allies trying to get 81 MPs to sign up so that he can formally challenge the Prime Minister, which I'm told is happening as we speak, those Labour mps are being canvassed and asked if they'll sign the nomination papers for him.

[John Pienaar]

Yeah, which also tells us it's not at all certain that he's got those 81 MPs that he needs on the Labour side to launch a campaign. Work still going on on that.

[Aubrey Allegretti]

I think that's probably true. It's not certain, but I would be surprised if his allies had launched into this action without being at least confident that they would be able to get that number. It represents around a fifth of Labour MPs, and of course we know that more than that number have said that Keir Starmer should go, but of course they are slightly divided amongst the sort of moderate centre left, soft left, hard left in the Labour Party. One thing I've been picking up this afternoon that I have quite found quite interesting is actually moderate MPs who are politically aligned with West Streeting, urging him not to go over the top, not for the reason that he shouldn't defonstrate Keir Starmer. But they're actually making a different point. They say that he would lose a Labour leadership election to a candidate of the left and he would effectively be ushering in somebody other than himself. They say he wouldn't win. And so even by triggering this contest, they have a huge amount to lose.

[John Pienaar]

That's an interesting and important point. Another, I don't know, maybe a bit of a kink in the plan. West Reading and some of those around him, we are saying, yes, he's got an mp, anonymous mp, ready to stand down and make way for West Reading to step in and fight that seat and get into the Commons, which of course, that he needs to do. But not everyone, certainly not everyone I've been talking to is absolutely convinced that that is true either. Aubrey.

[Aubrey Allegretti]

No, with Andy Burnham, it's been a bit of a case of will he won't he? And some even allies of him are suggesting that they think Andy Burnham's getting a bit too picky in terms of which seat he goes, because obviously the stakes have become incredibly high. This isn't just about which seat would he like. And if this were a conversation going on 12 months ago, then the sort of the calculation about which seat he could obviously take the risk and the gamble of stepping down from the mayoralty for to try and contest. Well, that equation has changed. The local election results from last week show reform has made huge inroads in Greater Manchester and is now in control of some councils there. And of course, the Greens won the Gordon and Denton by election just a couple of months ago. So it seems as though Andy Burnham still hasn't decided whether he wants to come back, where he's going to go. And even if he does, it's not entirely clear that he would have the sort of red carpet rolled out for him by Labour's nec, which is the ruling body that will effectively decide whether he's allowed to stand or not.

[John Pienaar]

Yeah. Still some, still some complications to what it mildly in the potentially in the way of Andy Burnham who is the bookie's favorite to come in and be the next Prime Minister as and when a leadership kicks off. And there are other complications too which we'll be talking about in the course of today's program. We'll Briana Gretti though at the Times political team, really grateful to you Aubrey. Thank you. Now should we get the thoughts of Anna Mihailova, our own political editor who's been watching everything as it's been unfolding at mpm, watching this debate in the House of, of Commons too. Anna, hi, welcome.

[Anna Mihailova]

Hi John.

[John Pienaar]

Hi. Look, it's, it is a difficult debate this for stammer. It would be for anyone in his position even though he's grown used to plowing on through painful situations. How's he doing?

[Anna Mihailova]

Yeah, the Prime Minister admitted it's a difficult day. He, you know, it's, it is a very odd situation watching him and his front bench while we've had a day of speculation about whether or not a key member of his team is about to resign and trigger that leadership contest against him. You know, Kemi Badenok delivered a very strong performance. He called them the plotters versus the pm. Interestingly, there was so little reaction from either the front bench or back benches. Normally you expect to see a little bit of heckling, a few interventions, trying to put her off her step. But you know, the Cabinet was just sitting absolutely stony faced really listening to this because of course that's all they could do. And you know that she, she specifically put out digs at West Streeting, at Shabana Mahmood. She sounded very confident as she did so it all felt almost like a comedy roast but no one was actually laughing. It was painful to watch. And the tension in the room, in the chamber because of course the speeches after a king's speech follow a very specific convention and are meant to be humorous. You get the first two backbench speeches that, you know, they were, they were full of humor and light jokes and had this effect of uniting both the House, but crucially Labour, the Labour Party and it's almost like we were in this moment of truce just before everyone gets back to the unescapable tension of what on earth is going on in Downing street and what does Keir Starmer do tonight? What everyone is asking around Parliament today is, everyone is asking, is West Streeting going to move and when is it going to be actually tomorrow, like it's been reported, or will it actually be this evening? Can Keir Starmer survive the evening in Downing street doing nothing? Despite these reports that west street is going to resign tomorrow, Will he really not be able to sack him? I bumped into one Cabinet minister who wouldn't give any reaction to what was going on, but was just walking around at an event post King's Speech event, rubbing shoulders with a lot of her colleagues where, you know, she just painted a big smile on her face, so obviously just keeping on carrying on, but so clearly showing that it was just papering over cracks. And I spoke to another minister who just after the King had finished, rushed back to her department and said that she's having. She's going back to do some work because to. The last two days have been absolutely impossible to get anything done because there's just such so much going on within the party.

[John Pienaar]

And that feels like a taste of things to come, doesn't it? We're just seeing earlier on, some of those around, around the Downing street team were actually celebrating last night, thought they'd got over the hump through the, through the tunnel. I mean, how wrong could you possibly be? You wonder what's wrong with their judgment where that's concerned. And, and Cabinet ministers, they're coming from different directions, but they must, like everybody else, feel just a bit banjax at the state of things. Anna.

[Anna Mihailova]

Well, and don't forget, I think, you know, there is a bunker mentality in Downing street on days like this. I, I spoke to someone from inside number 10 this morning and I asked them how the Prime Minister was feeling and they just said he feels confident and he was feeling confident yesterday and he feels he's, you know, he, he sort of survived yesterday pretty well. But that, that, that does not. That just feels very strange when you then talk to the party, the rest of the government, and I think, I think what you're touching on is there is just a very big difference in perception when you are in the bunker, in moments like these, where you're not really talking to many people from outside the core inner circle, as we know, Keir Selmer isn't doing.

[John Pienaar]

Yeah, I mean, different MPs facing different ways, different members of the cabinet facing different ways. But if you're looking at the Prime Minister position, you can only look at it as pretty wretched, can't you? When you've got all of the affiliated trade unions to the Labour Party, all of them putting out a statement saying Starmer needs to be gone before the next election. That's never happened. That's never happened before, Anna.

[Anna Mihailova]

Yes, and that move was hugely significant this morning. And that is something that was immediately seized upon by labor mps as they came into the Commons. You know, as one, as one of them said to me, it gives colleagues cover to then basically support any move against the Prime Minister when they see, you know, what the unions have done.

[Manveen Rana]

That was John Pienaar on Times Radio Drive chatting to Anna Michalova and Aubrey Allegretti. And don't forget, you can catch John on Drive every weekday at 4pm on Times Radio. We'll be back tomorrow morning where we'll be exploring President Trump's trip to China. See you then.

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