Streeting: PM’s failures will put Farage in power

Daily Telegraph 20/05/26 Sir Keir Starmer’s failures will put Nigel Farage in power, Wes Streeting has warned. The former health secretary used his resignation speech to declare that the Labour Government must change course or risk handing Reform UK the keys to No 10.

Mr Streeting, who quit Sir Keir’s Cabinet last week in the wake of Labour’s dire local election results, insisted he had “no regrets” over his resignation. He told MPs: “I left the Government because we are in the fight of our lives against nationalism, and it is a fight that we are currently losing. Unless we change course, we risk handing the keys of No 10 to Reform, and I do not want that on our consciences.” Mr Farage is on track to become the next prime minister, with Reform having enjoyed a comfortable lead in the polls for more than a year. The party won more than 1,450 council seats on May 7, taking control of 14 councils – nine of which it gained from Labour. Mr Streeting’s speech will be seen as the basis for a future Labour leadership campaign after he confirmed that he would challenge Sir Keir for No 10 if a contest was triggered. Sir Keir could face such a battle within weeks if Andy Burnham, the Mayor of Greater Manchester, is re-elected to Westminster at the Makerfield by-election. Reflecting on the country he wanted Britain to become, Mr Streeting appeared to accuse Labour of abandoning patriotism to Mr Farage and the political Right on Sir Keir’s watch. “For too long, and for too often, patriotism in Britain has been left to the loudest voices and the narrowest arguments, as though love of country belongs to one tribe, one country or one point of view,” he said. “But the Britain I believe in is bigger than that, because patriotism is not about who you exclude – it is about who you stand beside.” He went on to call for an “outward-looking, generous and united” patriotism while also attacking the SNP and Plaid Cymru, who beat Labour in the Scottish and Welsh earlier this month, for wanting to “look inwards”. Mr Streeting also used his first remarks since leaving the Cabinet to heap pressure on Sir Keir and Rachel Reeves, the Chancellor, to go further and faster on defence spending. He said: “The Nato secretary general is right to warn today that our alliance has an unhealthy reliance on one ally. We need to invest more heavily in our defence and more rapidly. I know my right honourable friend the Defence Secretary and his team do not need persuading on this.” Sir Keir and Ms Reeves have promised to increase defence spending to 2.5 per cent of GDP by next year and to 3.5 per cent by 2035 if Labour won the next election. However, Sir Keir is still refusing to set out a timeline to hit 3 per cent, despite pressure to do so from military chiefs and MPs across the political spectrum. He said: “For generations people believed there was a ladder of advancement, an entry-level job, skills acquired over time, promotion, security, progress. Now, many young people fear artificial intelligence may remove the lower rungs of that ladder entirely.” Mr Streeting, whose upbringing on a council estate in east London is likely to be at the foreground of a future leadership run, said advances in AI risked economic inequality becoming “entrenched”. He also warned that young people faced dangers from social media that went beyond their education and well-being, suggesting it could also harm their sense of community. Admitting that his resignation had been an “emotional wrench”, Mr Streeting recited to MPs a long list of NHS achievements since Labour came to power in July 2024. Waiting lists fell by 110,000 in March, the former health secretary said, while ambulance response times for heart attacks and strokes were now the fastest in five years. Almost 100 of Sir Keir’s backbenchers have now called on him to set out a timetable for leaving Downing Street, and Mr Streeting said Labour could not afford to keep “treading water” under his leadership. Sir Keir’s would-be successor ended his speech by quoting Dame Deborah James, who died in 2022 aged 40, six years after being diagnosed with incurable bowel cancer. Mr Streeting, a cancer survivor, quoted Dame Deborah’s mantra of “take risks, love deeply, have no regrets and always, always have rebellious hope”. He concluded: “It is with that in mind and the belief that we can and must do better, with deep love for my party and my country, with no regrets and with rebellious hope that I have left the Government. The Labour Party was elected to deliver real change. We still can.”