Wes Streeting is preparing to fire the starting gun on a Labour leadership challenge in the immediate aftermath of next week’s local elections, with sources telling The Telegraph he has already secured the backing of more than 81 MPs — the minimum number required to trigger a contest — putting him on a collision course with rivals who are not yet ready to move.
The Health Secretary’s calculation is straightforward and ruthless: strike fast, strike before Andy Burnham can get back into Parliament and before Angela Rayner resolves her tax troubles. A short race suits Streeting and nobody else. “Wes has got to gamble,” one Labour insider told The Telegraph. “A long race doesn’t help him so he’s got to charge out of the stalls before the other horses get saddled up.”
The scale of what awaits Labour on 7 May is being described in apocalyptic terms inside the party. “I don’t think anyone really understands the scale of what is going to happen next week,” one Labour source told The Telegraph. “Labour is going to lose in places it has never lost, including in parts of London. It will be destroyed in the Midlands and the North, and once the northern barons turn against Starmer, it’s over. It will be carnage.”
Against that backdrop, the question of who succeeds Sir Keir has moved from whispered conversation to active manoeuvring. The Telegraph can disclose that the parliamentary party and membership are increasingly coalescing around Burnham as the preferred candidate — but the Greater Manchester Mayor faces a fundamental obstacle: he is not an MP and cannot stand until he is. “People who were against Burnham four months ago are now saying he is our only hope,” one Labour grandee told The Telegraph.
For Burnham to enter the race, four separate hurdles would need to be cleared. A sitting Labour MP would have to voluntarily give up a safe seat. Burnham would need to be selected as candidate. He would need to win the by-election. And he would then need to win the leadership contest itself. None of those outcomes is guaranteed, and senior sources have warned that even in Labour’s safest northern seats, a by-election victory would not be a formality given the party’s current standing with voters.
Burnham was previously blocked from standing in the Gorton and Denton by-election on the direct orders of Starmer through the National Executive Committee — a seat Labour subsequently lost to the Greens. But those same sources say Starmer is now “too weak to block him again.”
The wild card in all of this is Angela Rayner, and nobody — including Rayner herself, according to those close to her — knows what she will do. She is still awaiting the outcome of an HMRC investigation into her failure to pay £40,000 in stamp duty and has told allies she cannot formally enter any contest until that matter is resolved. Her boyfriend Sam Tarry and chief of staff Nick Parrott are reportedly giving her conflicting advice. “She is wary of the threat from Wes, but she wants him to go first,” one source told The Telegraph. “She doesn’t want to be the first one over the top, because that would show disloyalty. But it’s getting close to make-your-mind-up time for Angela.”
There are also concerns within the Rayner camp that rivals have assembled a dossier of damaging stories — covering her tax affairs, gifts from Lord Alli and other matters — ready to deploy the moment she declares. “Some people think Angela’s leadership bid is more about promoting her memoir that’s coming out later this year,” said one person who knows her. “But she’s got massive self belief and if you’ve got a chance to become prime minister you’re not going to pass it up.”
Ed Miliband is widely viewed as a kingmaker rather than a candidate, despite predictions that he would do well among the membership if he stood. Most who know him believe he will not put his name forward, preferring instead to shape the outcome from behind the scenes and secure influence over economic policy through the Treasury. He has been holding regular conversations with both Burnham and Rayner, working to unite the party behind what insiders describe as a soft-Left leadership ticket, and has recently been seen rebuilding bridges with Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper — a development that would have been unthinkable months ago.
The outsider attracting growing attention is Al Carns, the defence minister, former Royal Marines commando and Military Cross holder who has only been an MP since 2024. “Al Carns is definitely building something,” one source told The Telegraph. “I think he may be very quietly organising while Angela and Andy aren’t making their minds up. He is one to really keep an eye on.” Most see him as a future prospect rather than an immediate contender, but his profile is rising.
What unites virtually everyone inside the Labour Party, The Telegraph reports, is the agreement that Starmer must go. What divides them entirely is everything else. “There is an agreement that Starmer has to go,” one Labour veteran said, “but no agreement over when that should happen, who should replace him or what the process for that should be.”
