Starmer Even Closer to the Brink

British Health Secretary Wes Streeting resigned today, increasing the pressure on Prime Minister Keir Starmer to step down. “Where we need vision, we have a vacuum. Where we need direction, we have drift,” Streeting said.

• Streeting is a leading candidate to replace Starmer. However, he refrained from firing the starting gun on a leadership challenge.

How Britain will choose its next prime minister:

• The Labour Party holds a majority of seats in Parliament, and whoever leads the majority party is the prime minister. (Each political party decides for itself how leaders are chosen and challenged.)
• To challenge Starmer, a candidate must have the support of 20 percent of Labour M.P.s, in this case, at least 81 members.
• Labour Party members can only trigger a leadership election by backing a specific individual. Starmer himself can also trigger a challenge by resigning. This is what Streeting and others are calling on him to do.
• Candidates must also have support from the trade unions, or from 5 percent of the wider party members. The Labour Party and trade union members vote on the successor using ranked ballots.

The turmoil is provoking political upheaval. Interest on British government debt has risen well past the dangerous level that pushed Prime Minister Liz Truss out of office. Traders fear a further-left-wing candidate will win and worsen the nation’s financial situation with yet more borrowing and spending.

“You could have something of a knee-jerk reaction if someone like Andy Burnham or Angela Rayner comes in. … If you lose the bond markets, good night, UK,” warned Ariel Bezalel of Jupiter Asset Management.

Britain is clearly going through a long-prophesied leadership crisis. Starmer has lasted less than two years so far, the nation’s sixth prime minister in only 10 years.

• Britain has switched from the Conservatives to Labour. It has burned through its first Catholic prime minister and its first Hindu prime minister. If Streeting wins, it will get its first homosexual prime minister.

The nation’s leadership crisis has everything to do with being cut adrift from its anchor. To understand, read “What Happened to British Leadership?”