Wes Streeting, who recently resigned as the health minister of the United Kingdom, has launched his leadership bid to become Prime Minister, saying he would challenge Keir Starmer in any Labour Party leadership contest. And he’s running on a promise of reversal.
Among the foremost points he highlighted while announcing the decision was that Britain should rejoin the European Union. In his first speech after resigning as the health minister, Streeting described Britain’s 2016 referendum decision to leave the bloc as “a catastrophic mistake”, claiming it had made the country its weakest since before the Industrial Revolution.
“We need a new special relationship with the EU, because Britain’s future lies with Europe, and one day — one day — back in the European Union,” Streeting said, according to news agency Reuters. Britain formally exited EU in 2020, after 47 years of membership. It was the first time that a country had left the 28-member group.
Streeting said that the British people were, in 2026, seeing that there was a need to “club together” in what he called “a dangerous world.”
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He said that this would help “both to rebuild our economy and trade, and improve our defence against the shared threats from Russian aggression and America First.” Streeting said the “biggest economic opportunity” was at UK’s doorstep.
Streeting said UK should seek to rejoin EU. While Starmer during his tenure has opposed Britain leaving the EU, he has also rejected trying to rejoin the bloc and refused to make c concessions on immigration, something which EU sees as necessary for closer economic ties, according to Reuters.
‘Need proper contest’
Streeting urged PM Keir Starmer to set a schedule for his departure, and said, “We need a proper contest with the best candidates on the field, and I will be standing.”
He was addressing a conference of the Progress group of Labour supporters.
According to Labour party rules, each challenger must get support from at least 20% of the party’s members of parliament, which enables them to trigger a leadership election.
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Streeting rejects rushing into leadership contest
Apart from Streeting, Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham has also expressed interest in challenging Starmer.
Burnham late on Thursday this week said he was standing for election in a newly vacant seat to return to parliament, a precondition for him to be able to challenge Starmer.
In the backdrop of this, Streeting said to rush into a leadership contest would “lack legitimacy”, given that all candidates would not be on the field. “We could have rushed straight into a leadership contest, knowing not all of the candidates would be on the pitch, that Andy Burnham was about to stand in a by-election, and that 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,” The Independent newspaper quoted Streeting as saying.
