As resignation letters go, it is long – two pages and nearly 1,000 words – and relatively dense. And as ever with such missives, there is plenty of subtext behind the substance.
So what was Wes Streeting trying to say to Keir Starmer?
‘I have delivered against the ambitious targets you set for me’
A somewhat self-serving beginning to a resignation message but, in fairness to Streeting, Thursday had brought news of the biggest fall in NHS England waiting lists in 17 years, if the Covid period is excluded.
This and succeeding paragraphs talk up his successes as health secretary, as a hopeful reminder to any Labour MPs or members listening that he has run a large department and, his allies would say, achieved change that voters notice.
‘Having lost confidence in your leadership … it would be dishonourable to [remain]’
About 300 words in, it really begins: he’s off. Streeting sets this out by confirming that when he met the prime minister for a brief talk on Wednesday morning, he told Starmer he no longer backed him.
Some reports claim Streeting also said he would set off a leadership challenge, a detail Streeting’s team deny and that is not mentioned here. This is perhaps the most important unspoken detail of all: despite repeated claims by allies that he had the 80-plus Labour MPs needed to set off a contest, the letter strongly hints he does not.
‘Last week’s election results were unprecedented’
Here, Streeting gets to the core of why so many Labour MPs believe Starmer has to go, even if they fear the chaos that may follow or have no particular allegiance to any of the likely successors.
There is a very real fear among them that last week’s elections proved that Starmer has no plan or ability to counter Reform UK, and that without a change at the top a Nigel Farage-led government appears inevitable, which makes them extremely worried.
‘There are many reasons we could point to’
Streeting highlights some of Starmer’s more obvious missteps, such as the debacle over limiting winter fuel payments to older people, on which the prime minister then largely backtracked, but also the “island of strangers” speech, which some MPs saw as losing Labour many voters to the left.
The speech, in May last year, echoed language by Enoch Powell, and the PM later said he regretted it. Its significance here is that while Streeting is from Labour’s right, his one reference to migration is to condemn a speech seen as pandering to Reform supporters but which helped push Labour voters towards the Greens.
‘Where we need vision, we have a vacuum. Where we need direction, we have drift’
This section is entirely transparent, and echoes the criticisms in just about every other letter from ministers or MPs explaining why they want Starmer to go: they believe he is congenitally incremental and managerial and is not the person needed for the task to come.
‘The debate about what comes next … needs the best possible field of candidates’
In some ways, this tries to make a virtue out of necessity: without the MP support required to begin an immediate contest, Streeting is obliged to instead appeal to Starmer to stand down and let a full field of contestants emerge.
The call for this to be “broad” could be seen as asking No 10 to allow Andy Burnham to fight a byelection – if he can find an MP to give up their seat – and enter the fray. Alternatively, this could simply be Streeting trying to exit a difficult immediate situation with as much dignity intact as possible.
