UK’s ex-health minister Streeting says will run to replace PM Keir Starmer

LONDON — Wes Streeting, who resigned as UK health secretary this week, announced Saturday he will run to replace Keir Starmer as Labour leader and prime minister, after the party suffered disastrous losses in last week’s local elections, sparking calls for the embattled British premier to step down.

Starmer has rejected calls to quit, including from within his own party, with around a fifth of Labour’s lawmakers in the House of Commons urging him to stand down. Streeting quit the government Thursday with a withering assessment of the party head’s leadership, though no other senior minister followed suit and the 43-year-old MP did not immediately trigger a leadership contest.

Later that day, Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham unveiled a bid to become an MP which, if successful, would allow the 56-year-old from the left of the party to stand in that contest. Burnham is seen as Starmer’s biggest would-be rival, partly because he’s perceived to be to the political left of the prime minister and has been a popular figure as Manchester’s mayor for nearly a decade.

While still not announcing he has kick-started the formal leadership challenge process, Streeting confirmed Saturday he will vie to replace Starmer and become the center-left Labour Party’s new leader.

Whoever leads the ruling party, which has a large majority in Britain’s parliament, will by default become prime minister.

“We need a proper contest with the best candidates on the field, and I’ll be standing,” Streeting said in a speech and question-and-answer session at a think tank event in London.

Explaining the lack of a formal contest launch, Streeting — from Labour’s right-wing and long thought to covet the premiership — said he wanted “all of the candidates… on the pitch.”

“If we had rushed ahead without giving Andy a chance to stand, the new leader, whether it was me or anyone else, would lack the legitimacy,” he said.

A Labour party leadership contest can be triggered if 81 of its MPs — 20 percent of the party in parliament — formally back a candidate to challenge Starmer and submit the necessary paperwork.

Starmer, as the current leader, would automatically be on the ballot if he wanted to defend the challenge.

Labour members and affiliates then get to vote, not just MPs. They rank candidates in order of preference and a contender needs 50 percent to win.

Labour’s National Executive Committee (NEC) — which selects the party’s candidates in parliamentary seat elections — said Friday it had permitted Burnham “to stand in the candidate selection process” in the by-election in Makerfield, northwest England.

That contest is expected in mid-June at the earliest, meaning any formal leadership challenge is likely to be triggered afterwards.

The political jockeying follows dismal results for Labour in local and regional elections held last week, which have prompted several junior ministers and dozens of the party’s MPs to demand that Starmer step down.

But the beleaguered 63-year-old UK leader appears to have been granted a stay of execution, of sorts, while Burnham’s fate is decided in the Makerfield by-election.

Burnham told British media Saturday he was prepared to “fight to the highest level.”

The Manchester mayor is known as the “King of the North,” and his Labour backers will hope that moniker reaps rewards.

Meanwhile, it appears Streeting, who delivered a wide-ranging speech at the think tank event, has kicked off a leadership campaign in all but name.

Setting out a fledgling policy platform, he said Brexit was “a catastrophic mistake” and that Britain must pursue a “new special relationship” with the European Union.

He signaled he wanted to see the country rejoin the trade bloc in the future.