UK prime minister Keir Starmer’s position hangs in the balance as his Labour leadership rivals circle. He has bunkered down in Number 10, while outriders for those who are presumed to be his main challengers organise campaigns to unseat him.
Starmer has pledged to fight on. If he falls, who are the main contenders to replace him?
Wes Streeting (43)
Streeting is the UK’s fresh-faced health secretary and a front-runner to be the next prime minister. He comes from a working class east London background, and if he were to replace Starmer, would be the first openly gay prime minister in UK politics.
He has never hid his ambition for the top job. Yet he faces several obstacles.
RM Block
The first is that Starmer has made it clear that he will try to face him down, and Streeting is wary of being the first mover to trigger a contest.
Another obstacle is Streeting is seen as a standard bearer of the soft right of the Labour Party, which as an organisation seems to be moving further to the political left.
Finally, polling shows he is not particularly popular with Labour members who will choose the next leader.
Andy Burnham (56)
Burnham is the mayor of Greater Manchester, where he has won three terms after having previously been an MP and a senior cabinet minister under Gordon Brown.
He has national profile. Polling suggests he is, by some distance, the most popular Labour Party politician in the country. He has a track record of good governance. He has the soft left credentials to chime with the party’s current trajectory. He has a desire for the top job and enough backing within the party and its membership.
Crucially, what he doesn’t have is a seat in the House of Commons. Without that he cannot actually stand to be Labour leader. He is trying to engineer a byelection in a safe Labour seat that might deliver him a route back to parliament.
Starmer’s allies blocked his last attempt. But if Burnham can organise a return in time, most people think the contest would be all over.
Angela Rayner (46)
The former deputy prime minister from Stockport wears her working class credentials as a badge of honour. A former teenage mother and care home worker who rose through the ranks of trade union politics, she has been an MP since 2015.
She had to quit government last year due to tax issues over a new flat, but harbours hopes of a quick return to high office.
Currently, she is in camp Burnham. But if the Manchester mayor was excluded from a contest, Rayner might feel obliged to enter to run against the right-winger Streeting. She remains hugely popular with Labour members, although not the country at large.
Al Carns (46) and a few others ...
The armed forces minister, Carns, is seen as an outside bet. He has only been an MP since 2024, but his allies say the former officer in the royal marines would give firm, steady leadership. The running joke in Westminster is that many of the people who say Al Carns would make a good prime minister are called ... Al Carns.
Carns aside, other contenders in an open contest could include former leader Ed Miliband or the chief secretary to the prime minister, Darren Jones.
