Wes Streeting: I’ll stand for Labour leadership – and Britain must rejoin EU

Wes Streeting has announced he will enter the Labor Party leadership contest as he makes his opening speech to become prime minister, calling for Britain to rejoin the European Union.

Speaking publicly for the first time since his resignation from the cabinet, the former health secretary warned Labor must stop being afraid of tackling big political issues if it wants to “smash” reform at the general election.

Otherwise, he said, Labor risked becoming “Nigel Farage’s servants and the disintegration of the United Kingdom”.

Speaking at the conference of the Progress think tank, Sir Keir Starmer took a stab at his government, saying it was too “timid” and called on his party to admit Brexit was a “catastrophic” mistake, oppose “not accounting for” racism and fight the tech giants.

His stance on Brexit will put pressure on Andy Burnham as he tries to fight a tough by-election in the Red Wall seat. Reports have suggested Mr Burnham could drop his call to reverse Brexit while advocating closer ties with the EU as he tries to win over Makerfield, which voted to leave the EU in 2016.

Mr Burnham said at last year’s Labor Party conference that he wanted Britain to rejoin the bloc, saying: “I hope it happens in my lifetime… People are more prosperous when they are part of unions. That’s my belief and I’ll say it openly.”

But the Manchester Mayor’s allies claimed he “will not play a big role in Europe” in his speech to voters.

Mr Burnham said his bid to become leader was a moment to “take the Labor Party back, to save it from where it was” and that he did not blame anyone for leaving the party.

But a new poll showed voters were split on his prospects; The survey by YouGov found that 31 per cent nationally believe the mayor now looks like a prime minister-in-waiting; but nearly the same number, 27 percent, think not. And more than two in five, 42 percent, are not sure they have what it takes. In his political backyard in northern England, the figures are 38 per cent to 27 per cent.

Labor now faces a wait to see whether Mr Burnham can win a seat in parliament and then trigger a Labor leadership race with the support of at least 81 Labor MPs.

In his scathing criticism of Sir Keir’s government, Mr Streeting said Labor had run a “dishonest leadership race” which was “followed by extreme caution from the opposition”.

“Interesting policy ideas couldn’t be put forward because we were too afraid of what the Conservatives would say, so we said nothing.” The result, he said, was that a party that came into government under-prepared and “lacking clarity of vision and direction” led to an early “disaster” such as cutting winter fuel allowances to millions of pensioners.

Backbenchers in the government were “scolded” for supporting quirky ideas such as banning smartphones in schools.

And he also attacked the reaction to the recent far-right march on the streets of London, saying ministers had been “sent out by Number 10 with a media text to make a statement rather than condemn the march”.

He warned the party that it could not find radical solutions by ignoring ideas by trying to solve problems “as if the government were the same as management consultancy”.

When it comes to Brexit, Trump said leaving the European Union was a “catastrophic mistake” and called for a new special relationship with the bloc, arguing that Britain’s future is in Europe and that it will one day return to the EU.

He also attacked tech giants, who he said were destroying shared truths and using algorithms to highlight “the worst of us”: “We chose to hand the Pen to the tech moguls in Silicon Valley to write our future for us. It’s time to take the pen back.”

Westminster waited with bated breath this week to see whether the health secretary would resign and make a leadership bid against Sir Keir. He eventually resigned, but his official challenge never emerged.

Within hours of his resignation, attention turned to Mr Burnham, whose Labor MP Josh Simons announced he was prepared to resign his seat to trigger a by-election, paving the way for Westminster and possibly No 10.