UK health secretary Wes Streeting has resigned, citing a ‘loss of faith’ in the Labour party’s leadership under Prime Minister Keir Starmer following the party’s significant losses in last week’s local elections.
The Labour party performed poorly in the local elections, held on 7 May, losing control of 36 local authorities across England, Scotland, and Wales, reducing its nationwide total to 28, as per statistics from BBC News.
Meanwhile, the Reform party, helmed by Nigel Farage, made significant gains, as did the Green party, with wins in former Labour strongholds, under the leadership of Zack Polanski.
In his resignation letter, Streeting called the election results “unprecedented”, both in terms of the “scale of the defeat and the consequences of that failure”.
Streeting went on to write that while he felt there were good reasons for him to remain in his post, having lost confidence in Starmer’s leadership, he ultimately concluded that it would be “dishonourable and unprincipled” to do so.
Taking his chance to highlight the improvements to the UK National Health Service (NHS) conducted under his tenure, Streeting said the only question that matters is whether the party would leave its successors in “a better situation than we inherited”.
In 2024, after fourteen years of Conservative party rule in the UK, Professor Andrew Street of the London School of Economics (LSE) wrote that the party had “left the NHS in intensive care”, with the particularly poor state of the NHS in England “almost entirely a consequence of Westminster’s Conservative government policies”.
Reflecting on some of the key achievements overseen since Labour ousted the Conservative party in the general election in July 2024, Streeting highlighted improvements in ambulance response times for heart attacks and strokes, and reductions in A&E waiting times.
Streeting also noted that since Labour took power, 2,000 more GPs had been recruited, and claimed that satisfaction had risen by around 15%.
Responding to Streeting’s resignation, Thea Stein, CEO of Nuffield Trust, noted that he made a “promising start” by commissioning Lord Darzi to carry out a review of the NHS which “laid bare the monumental challenges facing the health service and what needed to improve” and generally oversaw “slow but positive progress” regarding public satisfaction with the NHS, including on access to GP appointments.
Stein, however, was critical of proper recognition having been given to the “trade-offs needed during a time of scarce resources” throughout Streeting’s tenure.
“For example, it has been incredibly difficult to start delivering ambitious plans to shift more care out of hospitals at the same time as trying to rapidly cut waiting times,” Stein said.
“The trade deal with the US which will lead to billions more being spent on the same medicines, instead of spending it on existing services with greater health benefits, will only make it much harder for the government to achieve everything it hopes to with the NHS,” Stein continued.
Streeting’s departure from the Labour party may prove the fissure that breaks the dam and results in a leadership challenge being mounted against Starmer. The prospect of a challenge to Starmer’s leadership has been percolating since the local election results came in, with names including Ed Miliband and Andy Burnham being touted as potential challengers. Streeting himself could also mount a leadership challenge, as per media reports.
