LONDON (AP) — British Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s leadership is on the rocks after his Labour Party suffered heavy defeats in local elections last week.
Health Secretary Wes Streeting on Thursday became the first Cabinet member to resign though he didn’t immediately launch his widely expected bid to oust Starmer.
The election beating may have been the final straw for a leader already tainted by his decision to appoint Peter Mandelson as Britain’s ambassador to Washington despite the veteran politician’s ties to Jeffrey Epstein.
More than 90 Labour lawmakers have called for Starmer to step down and make way for a contest to pick a new leader, who would take over as prime minister, and several junior ministers have quit.
Starmer has insisted he is staying put, and no formal leadership challenge has yet been launched.
While there is no clear front-runner to replace Starmer, here are some of the leading contenders for the top job:
Wes Streeting
Wes Streeting, 43, is widely regarded as one of the government’s best communicators and has led on one of its key pledges, improving the creaky National Health Service.
That mission was personal. The NHS saved his life when he had kidney cancer, and Streeting said he would repay the debt by saving the health service.
Streeting, who was elected a lawmaker in 2015, was long considered to have his eye on the top job but had strongly denied he was plotting to replace Starmer.
He charted his rise from his roots in London’s working-class East End, where he grew up in public housing, in his memoir, “One Boy, Two Bills and a Fry Up: A Memoir of Growing Up and Getting On.” The title refers to two grandfathers both named Bill: The one on his mother’s side was associated with gangsters and served prison time for armed robbery; he credits the one on his father’s side with leading him on the path to Cambridge University.
Streeting got into politics at a young age, leading the Cambridge student union and becoming president of the National Union of Students.
He later worked for Stonewall, the LGBT group, and has spoken of his struggle coming out as gay and reconciling his sexuality with his Anglican faith.
Angela Rayner
Former Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner has long set herself apart as a different kind of politician with a compelling personal story. She was brought up in social housing and left school at 16 as a teen mother.
Rayner, 46, was active in trade unions before she was elected a lawmaker in 2015 and is on the left of the party. She soon rose to Labour’s senior ranks when the party was in opposition and was elected deputy leader in 2020.
Rayner enjoys significant support within the party, but she was forced to resign from the government last year after admitting she did not pay enough tax on a house purchase. She announced Thursday that she had cleared up the issue with tax authorities in what appeared to be a precursor to a possible leadership challenge.
After the fallout over the Epstein files’ revelations on Mandelson, Rayner led a lawmakers’ revolt to force the government to cede control to Parliament’s Intelligence and Security Committee to decide which documents should be released into the public domain.
Andy Burnham
Former Cabinet minister Andy Burnham, the popular, center-left Greater Manchester mayor, has long been seen as a potential rival for Starmer. But his leadership prospects were dented after Labour blocked him from standing as the party’s candidate for Parliament in a special election in February.
By longstanding convention, the prime minister must be a member of Parliament. Burnham’s supporters favor a delayed leadership contest that would give him time to return to the House of Commons through a special election.
Burnham, 56, served in senior roles in previous Labour governments, including as culture secretary and health secretary.
Ed Miliband
Energy Secretary Ed Miliband is a former Labour leader, but his five years at the top of the party when it was in opposition ended in the party’s 2015 election defeat. Miliband, 56, has publicly played down any desire to return to the job, but he is one of the most experienced members of the Cabinet.
Shabana Mahmood
Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood, 45, has one of the toughest jobs in government, overseeing immigration and law and order. She has become a favorite of many on the right of the Labour Party with her moves to tighten border controls and crack down on unauthorized immigration.
Al Carns
The former Royal Marine who served with distinction in Afghanistan is the armed forces minister in Starmer’s Labour government and has seen his stock rise within the party ever since he was first elected to Parliament in Labour’s 2024 landslide election victory.
Carns, 46, has a captivating personal story that could attract support among the different factions within Labour. In addition to his distinguished service in Afghanistan, which saw him awarded the Military Cross in 2011, Carns was born in a working class family in the Scottish oil town of Aberdeen to a single mother.
“We do not need more slogans, strategies, press releases or commissions,” Carns said in an article for The New Statesman magazine published on Thursday, “We need action.”
His lack of experience could be a weakness. Replacing a leader who has been criticized for his lack of political sense with a relative newcomer, however compelling their backstory, could be risky
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Jill Lawless, Pan Pylas and Brian Melley contributed.
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What to know about contenders who could replace Keir Starmer as Britain’s Labour leader
