Wes Streeting’s damning resignation letter to Keir Starmer in full | Politics | News
In a damning resignation letter to the Prime Minister, Wes Streeting said: “Where we need vision there is a vacuum. Where we need direction we are adrift. This was highlighted in your speech on Monday. Leaders take responsibility, but too often that means other people fall on their swords. You also need to listen to your colleagues, including those coming from behind, and a tough approach to dissenting voices undermines our policy.”
The lengthy letter to the Prime Minister reads in full: “Dear Prime Minister. The results are in and I am pleased to report that I have met the ambitious targets you set for me when I became your Secretary of State for Health and Social Care. Today’s figures confirm that despite the strikes we have exceeded our waiting time target and waiting lists fell by 110,000 in March, the biggest non-Covid monthly drop since 2008 – meaning we are on track to achieve the fastest improvement in NHS waits of any time in history.”
The only question that matters in government is whether we leave our successors a better situation than the one we inherited. Ambulance response times to heart attacks and strokes are now the fastest in the last five years. A&E waiting times are improving and four-hour waiting figures are the best in five years. We hired a further 2,000 GPs and satisfaction has increased from 60 per cent to 74.5 per cent since we took office. We met our goal of hiring 8,500 mental health workers three years early. We achieved this by balancing the accounts for the first time in nine years and exceeding the NHS productivity target of 2 per cent by achieving 2.8 per cent; This means our investment goes further and the public can have greater confidence that their money is being well spent.
None of this could have been achieved without the brilliant leadership team we have built at the Department of Health and Social Care and the NHS, of ministers, officials and special advisers, superbly led by Samantha Jones and Sir Jim Mackey, a knight in shining armor and a brilliant leader of the 1.5 million employees on whom all this success depends.
The NHS is the embodiment of everything that is best about Britain and our values. The Labor Party is on the road to recovery thanks to our government: much has been done, but there is much more to do.
These are all good reasons for me to remain in office, but as you know from our conversation earlier this week, having lost confidence in your leadership, I have concluded that doing so would be dishonorable and unprincipled.
Last week’s election results were unprecedented, both in terms of the scale of the defeat and the consequences of that failure. For the first time in our country’s history, nationalists are in power in every corner of the UK, including the dangerous British nationalism represented by Nigel Farage and Reform UK. Not only does this represent an existential threat to the future integrity of the United Kingdom, but Reform UK also represents a threat to the values and ideals that have made this country great. Progressives across our country understand this threat and our responsibility to confront it, but they are increasingly losing faith that Labor can fulfill our historic responsibility to defeat racism and offer hope that Britain’s best days will come through social democracy.
There is no doubt that the unpopularity of this Government was an important and common factor in our defeats in England, Scotland and Wales. Good Labor people lost through their own mistakes. There are many reasons we can point to: from individual mistakes in policy, such as the decision to cut winter fuel allowances, to the ‘island of strangers’ rhetoric, all of which left the country without knowing who we were or what we truly stood for.
You have many strengths that I admire. You led our party to a victory in 2024 that few thought possible, and I was proud to fight alongside you in the trenches of that campaign. You have demonstrated courage and statesmanship on the world stage; especially by keeping Britain out of the war in Iran.
But there is a gap where we need vision. We drift where we need guidance. This was underlined in your speech on Monday. Leaders take responsibility, but that often means falling on other people’s swords, too. You should also listen to your colleagues, including those in the background; A harsh approach towards dissenting voices weakens our policy.
As a member of your government, I know better than most that governing is difficult. It must be so because it is important. There are enormous challenges facing this country. For the first time in our history, the next generation faces a worse legacy than the previous generation. Wars continue in Europe and the Middle East, complicating our difficulties rather than making them easier. We are on the outskirts of a technological industrial revolution that has great impacts on every aspect of our lives, especially the future of work. It is unclear whether democracy or tyranny will define the 21st century. After the financial crisis, austerity, the Brexit disaster, Liz Truss, the covid pandemic, the war in Ukraine and now the war in Iran, the country needs to believe again that things can be better than this and that politics is part of the answer, not the root of the problem. These are big challenges that require a bold vision and bigger solutions than we offer.
It is clear that you will no longer be leading Labor at the next general election and that Labor MPs and Trade Unions want the debate about what happens next to be a battle of ideas, not personalities or petty factionalism. It needs to be large, and it needs the best field of candidates possible. I support this approach and hope you will facilitate it, too.
It has been the great joy of my life to serve as your Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, and despite our differences this week, I am truly grateful for the opportunity to serve and deeply saddened to leave government in this way.
Kind regards,
Rt Hon Wes Streeting MP
