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  "description": "Labour unrest has intensified as Wes Streeting, Angela Rayner and Andy Burnham emerge as possible successors if Keir Starmer’s premiership collapses.",
  "path": "/2026/05/15/who-are-the-main-contenders-to-replace-keir-starmer-as-prime-minister/",
  "publishedAt": "2026-05-15T00:15:00.000Z",
  "site": "https://www.europeans.today",
  "tags": [
    "Labour",
    "resignation letter",
    "argued for caution",
    "significant role",
    "her tax affairs",
    "Makerfield constituency",
    "outpolls his main rivals",
    "net approval ratings",
    "Wes Streeting quits cabinet and calls on Starmer to resign",
    "Angela Rayner cleared by HMRC over tax affairs",
    "Labour MP to stand down to allow Burnham run for byelection",
    "How could Labour remove Keir Starmer? Four possible routes",
    "When will the Makerfield by-election take place?",
    "Streeting would lose leadership contest against Keir Starmer, poll reveals",
    "Labour can’t afford to ignore Andy Burnham",
    "Streeting quits, Labour leadership battle remains unsettled",
    "Andy Burnham’s big challenge: The route to succeeding Starmer is littered with obstacles",
    "The Conversation",
    "KORWEN"
  ],
  "textContent": "**What you need to know**\n\n🔹 Labour MPs increasingly expect a leadership change\n🔹 Wes Streeting, Angela Rayner, and Andy Burnham are central contenders\n🔹 Burnham lacks a parliamentary seat for now\n🔹 Markets may test any new prime minister\n\n\n\n\nI t has become a given in Westminster circles that Keir Starmer’s tenure as prime minister could be nearing its end.\n\nThis is because, fairly or unfairly, the UK public have made up their minds – and they do not like him.\n\nLabour MPs know this all too well, having seen the level of animosity on the doorstep during recent election campaigns in England, Wales and Scotland. They just didn’t immediately know what to do about it. But then Wes Streeting quit as health secretary, criticising Starmer in his resignation letter for what he said was a _“vacuum”_ where political vision was required.\n\nRecent UK history is full of precedents when prime ministers found their position untenable. For the Conservatives, Theresa May, Boris Johnson, and Liz Truss were all removed eventually. But such a course of action comes with costs: to party unity, to market sentiment, and in terms of how the voters view political shenanigans.\n\nThis is why, until now, the more thoughtful voices in the Labour party either kept their counsel or argued for caution. But a significant number of Labour MPs believe that a change at the top is now inevitable.\n\n##### Streeting, Rayner or Burnham\n\nFrom the right of the party, Streeting, the combative former health secretary, is the key figure to challenge Starmer. But he still requires the backing of at least 81 fellow Labour MPs.\n\nA Streeting bid for the leadership would be supported by much of the media, but what many regard as his lukewarm re-tread of old Blairite orthodoxies would limit his appeal with the party membership. And members play a significant role in leadership contests.\n\nBy contrast, a likely candidate of the so-called “soft left”, former deputy prime minister Angela Rayner, has now cleared up her tax affairs and is more popular with the party rank-and-file. But she would alienate much of the London commentariat.\n\nWhat neither Streeting nor Rayner possess is genuine cut-through with the wider British public. And this is where the current mayor of Greater Manchester, Andy Burnham, comes in. Burnham does not have a parliamentary seat and, although he intends to contest the Makerfield constituency made vacant by Josh Simons’ decision to step aside, it is not guaranteed that he will win. Given Labour’s current unpopularity, the party cannot assume it would win a by-election anywhere.\n\nAnd even if Burnham did scale that hurdle, there is a real danger that his replacement as the Labour candidate for the mayoralty would lose to Reform UK. This would allow party opponents to portray Burnham’s move as an indulgence at the expense of the party.\n\nNevertheless, if the political stars were to align and Burnham navigates his passage back to Westminster in time for a leadership challenge, he would be a formidable opponent. Burnham not only outpolls his main rivals among Labour members, he also enjoys rare net approval ratings with the public (+6, compared with -12 for Rayner and -20 for Streeting). Labour MPs will be paying particular attention to those numbers.\n\nThere is strong reason to believe that Rayner will have a crucial role in how this plays out. This could either be by standing for leader herself or through working with Burnham. Either way, she is in an incredibly influential position.\n\nAnd what would Labour and the country look like under new leadership? The revolving door at the top partly reflects the extent of the challenges (economic, political, cultural) that the country faces. Voters have not seen rises in their real living standards for two decades, are truly angry and deeply polarised.\n\nThe UK is divided on how to go forward, and so is the Labour Party. That is why potential challengers to Starmer really should be careful what they wish for. Much of the political instability of recent years is down to the collective obsession with politics as a short-term and personality-based kind of show business.\n\nBut this ignores the more worrying long-term developments in financial markets that indicate that there is no faith in the UK’s ability to tackle its structural problems any time soon. The eventual winner of Labour’s leadership drama may inherit the throne just as money markets’ patience with the UK runs out.\n\n### **GOING FURTHER**\n\n  * ######  Wes Streeting quits cabinet and calls on Starmer to resign | _The Guardian_\n\n  * ######  Angela Rayner cleared by HMRC over tax affairs | _The Guardian_\n\n  * ######  Labour MP to stand down to allow Burnham run for byelection | _The Guardian_\n\n  * ######  How could Labour remove Keir Starmer? Four possible routes | _The Guardian_\n\n  * ######  When will the Makerfield by-election take place? | _The Standard_\n\n  * ######  Streeting would lose leadership contest against Keir Starmer, poll reveals | _LabourList_\n\n  * ######  Labour can’t afford to ignore Andy Burnham | _PoliticsHome_\n\n  * ######  Streeting quits, Labour leadership battle remains unsettled | _Europeans TODAY_\n\n  * ######  Andy Burnham’s big challenge: The route to succeeding Starmer is littered with obstacles | _Europeans TODAY_\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n###\n\n\n\n\n* * *\n\n#### **Sources:**\n\n###### ▪ This piece was originally published in The Conversation and re-published in Europeans TODAY on 15 May 2026. | The author writes in a personal capacity.\n\n###### ▪ **Cover:** Dreamstime/KORWEN.\n\n\n\n\n* * *\n\n\n",
  "title": "Who are the main contenders to replace Keir Starmer as prime minister?",
  "updatedAt": "2026-05-15T02:38:47.109Z"
}