Sir Keir Starmer should set out a timetable for standing down as Prime Minister if Andy Burnham wins this week’s Makerfield by-election, Wes Streeting has said.
The Prime Minister meanwhile insisted that he would prove his rivals wrong and “carry on with what I was elected to do”, amid threats to his leadership.
Mr Streeting was resolute that he plans to stand in a Labour leadership contest if it is triggered, and that he had the required number of 80 Labour MPs to back him in a leadership race.
However, he was hesitant to say he would be the one to fire the starting gun.
Speaking to reporters at a press conference in central London where he outlined his economic vision, the senior Labour figure said: “I’ve been extremely clear about this. I think there should be a contest. I have every intention of standing in that contest.”
Mr Streeting’s diagnosis is that Labour is suffering from three problems at the moment: with leadership, with policy, and with culture.
“There is a huge amount of talent on the front bench and the back bench of the parliamentary Labour Party. It isn’t used nearly well enough, and the divides between Labour’s different tribes are often overstated,” he said.
“I think we all have a shared sense of what’s wrong. I think we have different views about how to put it right, but at the end of it, we need to come together.”
He continued: “I would hope that after Thursday’s by-election, when the results are in, and I very much hope Andy Burnham wins – I was there yesterday campaigning for him again – when the results are in, I hope the Prime Minister will at that stage reflect on his own position and set out a timetable.
“I think that would be a better way forward for everyone, and would enable that better culture that we aspire to.”
The Prime Minister was asked about threats to his leadership by reporters as he attended the G7 summit in France.
Sir Keir insisted he would “bring back the change that people desperately need”, ahead of the looming by-election in Makerfield.
He told reporters: “So very many times on my political journey, people have said to me it’s not possible.
“They said it’s not possible to turn the Labour Party around. It’s not possible to win an election.
“It’s not possible if you do win election, to invest in your public services and stabilise the economy wrong every time, and that’s why I intend not to walk away from this, but to carry on with what I was elected to do, which is to serve this country, bring back the change that people desperately need in their lives.”
Mr Burnham is the favourite to win the by-election in the Greater Manchester constituency this week, multiple opinion polls have suggested.
His nearest challenger is Reform UK’s Robert Kenyon, though Nigel Farage’s political outfit is worried about losing voters to Restore Britain, a party which positions itself as more hard line than Reform on migration and other issues.
