Wes Streeting resigns from government - paving way for leadership challenge

Added: 2026-05-17

[00:00:00]The health secretary Wes Streeting has handed in his letter of resignation to the prime minister. That letter coming into us here at Sky News. The health secretary within the last 60 seconds putting it out on social media. Our political editor Beth Rigby is here. Um the letter of resignation we've been anticipating um for the last 48 hours really. Beth has just landed.

[00:00:23]>> Yeah. News uh just as we came on air. uh Wes Streetin has resigned as the health secretary. He has put out at one:00 a letter on his exac account, a two-page letter outlining that he is standing down from government. He has said in this letter, "Having lost confidence in your leadership, I have concluded it would be dishonorable and unprincipled to remain imposed." He says where we need vision we have a vacuum where we need direction we have drift. So Wes Street in the health secretary has resigned from Kier Stalmer's cabinet uh just coming out in the last moments. I haven't actually been able uh to read the letter in full yet. It literally came as we were on air.

[00:01:16]>> Beth, you scan your eyes over it. I'm just going to read a couple of the the paragraphs towards the end. Um he says, "As a member of your government, I know better than most that governing is hard.

[00:01:25]It should be because it matters. There are enormous challenges facing this country. For the first time in our history, the next generation faces a worse inheritance than the last." He also says leaders take responsibility, but too often that has meant people falling on their swords. That is clearly quite an open criticism of Kier Stalmer who has said he is taking responsibility for election losses, for mistakes over the appointment of Peter Mandelen, but has remained imposed uh when so many others have left, be that his chief of staff, Morgan Mcweeny, his director of comm communications, Tim Allen, and of course um the head of the foreign office uh having to quit. He says at the end of the letter, "It is now clear that you will not lead the Labour party into the next general election and that Labour MPs and Labor unions want the debate about what comes next to be a battle of ideas, not personalities or petty factionalism. It needs to be broad. It needs the best possible field of candidates. I support that approach and you I hope you facilitate this." Now that's interesting because uh what has been going on all morning is we have been waiting for Wes Streetin to move.

[00:02:41]We have been waiting essentially for Wes Streetin's resignation. And it became very clear to me uh last night that whether or not uh Wes Streetin had the numbers to challenge the prime minister, trigger a leadership battle, he'd need 81 uh backers to do so that given what had happened yesterday, the past 48 hours, it was unsustainable for him to remain in Kama's cabinet. Uh so would he be sacked or would he resign?

[00:03:07]>> Well, but equally the prime minister took a decision not to sack Wes Street and he said that yesterday. He had full confidence in him. He said it today at lunchtime, his spokesperson rather. And why were they doing that? I think that they did not want to give any fuel to the flames and to the anger. And so he didn't want to be provocative in any way. And so he was trying to take a carry on as usual approach uh and and not uh create further reasons for people to rebel against him. Um what's interesting about this though is that what Wes Street is not saying in this letter is that I have uh the numbers to trigger a leadership ballot. He's resigned from government. There has been a very live conversation uh in Westminster over the past 24 hours as to whether or not Wes Streetin has the numbers to trigger a leadership ballot.

[00:04:02]Now his allies are clear that he does that he could trigger this ballot.

[00:04:06]Others think that he doesn't. I've seen a couple of different MPs. Uh this morning I was around the House of Commons because the prime minister was in the House of Commons meeting uh with ministers and MPs today trying to convince them to stick with him. And what I was told was that some people perhaps were wobbling. Uh were people deciding that they didn't want to try to trigger a race. Now I think what's really significant about what Wes Street has said in this letter about what comes next is a battle of ideas not personalities or petty factualism. It needs to be broad. It needs to be the best possible field of candidates. What has been going on in the Labour party is that uh there are a number of MPs that would like Andy Burnham, the Greater Manchester Mayor to be able to run in this race. And if a race is triggered now, there are questions about whether Andy Burnham could step forward because obviously he would have to win a seat in parliament and then come uh and participate in a leadership election >> and that takes time >> and it takes time and if a leadership election was triggered now uh the nominations open and they could close i.e. getting the numbers required before Andy Burnham is back in parliament that would shut him out of the race and some of his supporters have been telling me uh even as late as this morning that it would uh not uh resolve the issue of leadership for good. if you lock out someone uh that potentially is to be blunt blatant about it, he is the front runner uh that it would uh in the end uh mean that you could replace K Star, but you would still have leadership questions and and it seems to me and I don't know because I haven't had any background uh briefing as to uh anything else beyond uh beyond the letter from any of Wes's allies, but but it seems to me um that Wes Street is kind of keeping his options open. "It's clear you will not lead the Labour party into the g next general election," he tells the prime minister. And that Labor MPs and Labor unions want the debate about what comes next to be a battle of ideas, not personalities. It needs to be broad. It needs to be the best possible field of candidates. I support that approach.

[00:06:25]Now, reading that for me, that suggests to me that perhaps he is not about to trigger a leadership race. Perhaps he doesn't want to or he doesn't have the numbers. I really don't uh know that at the moment. As I said, there's been from what you said, >> there's been a Yeah, there's been suggestions that people think he does not have the numbers.

[00:06:44]>> Could he have done anything else other than do this given the position that he got himself into?

[00:06:48]>> I personally feel that over the past 24 hours, Wes Street could not have in good conscience stayed on as health secretary. And I also think it would have looked poor on him to do so, not least because some of the ministerial resignations that happened on Tuesday, they were some of his closest allies and it was people that wanted to trigger uh that race uh that wanted to do so. But one of his allies I spoke to earlier today was quite frustrated because they said to me, to quote this person, MPs are looking at where the wind is blowing. They're looking at which way the wind is blowing. But in this person's view, they said to me, Labour MPs are the wind. They can determine whether to trigger uh this race. So, I mean, look, this is Wes Street in uh resigning. Uh clear the prime minister will not lead Labor into the next election. The unions uh yesterday also made that point and this is just piling more and more pressure on the prime minister to at very least set out a timetable for his departure from government. Yeah, the big question still not answered who will come forward to challenge him as leader. West Streeting, as you said, hasn't made that move yet, but this resignation potentially paving the way for that. And we did her hear from Angela Raina earlier today um cleared by HMRC. She's repaid the tax that she owed on a property. That scandal has now gone away. And she's given interviews today essentially saying that, you know, I'm a team player. However, if there were to be a leadership contest, don't rule me out. So, again, there are other characters to watch given this move that we're treating as late. So, how do you think this is going to unfold?

[00:08:31]>> I think there's that there's a there's a number of things here. Angela Raina, who you can see on the screen, she was under investigation by uh HMRC over whether or not she'd underpaid tax and whether she was culpable for that in that she had intentionally uh mispaid tax. Now, there was an investigation by HMRC. If she had been found to have intentionally done it, she would have been fined. In the end, they said, "You have mispaid your stamp duty." This was on a second home she bought. She thought it was a primary residence cuz she put the portion of her family home into trust for her disabled son. That was not correct. She did not get the correct advice. Now, this morning, um, her team revealed she did a couple of different interviews, one on ITV and one with the Guardian. uh saying that uh she had underpaid her tax but that she hadn't deliberately uh sought to avoid tax. So she was effectively exonerated.

[00:09:28]She did repay the underpaid uh stamp duty. So she paid that money but crucely she was not fined by HMRC and she said you know it clipped my wings. she feels exonerated and really it's left a clean slate for Angela Raina to stand if she chooses to. Now, as I understand it, when I speak to people around Angela Raina, uh the position is that um as I understand it that Angela Raina, you know, would if necessary put her name forward. What do what does that mean? I mean she is on the soft left of the party as isanti Bernham as is Ed Milliban someone also being talked about as a possible leadership contender and I think what Angela Rainers is saying there in terms of via her proxies is that um that she doesn't rule out standing because the soft left are very clear that if a leadership race was triggered now by Wes Streetin they would not let Wes street have a run of that and the reason is because Wes street and is on the progressive wing of the Labor Party. That's more to the the center of the Labor Party and and politically and ideologically he's not where a lot of the party is and he's certainly not where the members are. Uh so this really now uh put in the pressure uh on the prime minister and uh there's questions about whether other cabinet ministers go into number 10 and ask the prime minister to set out a timetable. We know that Ed Miband has done that. We know that Shabbana Mimmude the home secretary has quietly done that. We know that Avette Cooper went in and John Healey to have a conversation with the prime minister privately. Uh where street presumably and I'm guessing this I don't know but maybe he did tell the prime minister of his intention uh to resign in that very short meeting they had yesterday. It was awkward for Wes Street's team because the health secretary's team had made it clear that he was not going to say anything to try to disrupt the king's speech and then of course some of his allies um whilst being called by various journalists including myself uh sort of confirmed that the plan was for Wes Streetin uh to resign um today. Uh West Street's actual core team have kept completely silent on all of that until this letter uh dropped at 1:00