Wes Streeting, the health secretary, held a 16-minute meeting with Keir Starmer in Downing Street on Wednesday, as an ally of Streeting renewed calls for the prime minister to resign. Dr Zubir Ahmed, who resigned from his junior health minister role on Tuesday, accused Starmer of becoming the 'inadvertent midwife of a fifth-term SNP government' and urged him to set out a timetable for his departure.
The meeting came amid intense speculation over Labour’s leadership crisis. Streeting left No 10 without commenting to the media. No 10 insiders suggested Streeting was playing down speculation that he was on the brink of declaring his candidacy for the leadership, while his allies portrayed the meeting as a moment for him to speak candidly about his concerns.
Dr Ahmed told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that Labour had been unable to challenge the SNP because of 'noise created at the centre'. He said the reaction among Labour MPs was 'not one faction' but a 'commonly held view that this is unsustainable and unstable'. His intervention risked widening scrutiny around Streeting’s positioning.
Earlier this week, senior cabinet ministers Yvette Cooper and Shabana Mahmood told Starmer he should oversee an orderly transition. Meanwhile, the Guardian revealed that 11 Labour-affiliated unions, including Unite, Unison and GMB, were predicting Starmer would not lead the party into the next general election and were expected to issue a joint statement calling for a plan to elect a new leader.
Cabinet Office minister Nick Thomas-Symonds, a longstanding Starmer ally, described the meeting as simply a 'coffee' and said there was no viable leadership challenge, as rebels had failed to unite around an alternative candidate with the backing of 81 MPs required under party rules. Sources close to Ed Miliband denied reports that he was prepared to run for the leadership if Streeting triggered a contest.
