Wes Streeting, Britain's Secretary of State for Health and Social Care leaves after attending a Cabinet meeting in Downing Street in London, Monday, Oct. 20, 2025. (AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth)
Britain's Prime Minister Keir Starmer attends the Remembrance Sunday Service at the Cenotaph in London, Sunday, Nov. 9, 2025. (AP Photo/Alastair Grant, Pool)
Wes Streeting, Britain's Secretary of State for Health and Social Care leaves after attending a Cabinet meeting in Downing Street in London, Monday, Oct. 20, 2025. (AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth)
KW
Britain's Prime Minister Keir Starmer attends the Remembrance Sunday Service at the Cenotaph in London, Sunday, Nov. 9, 2025. (AP Photo/Alastair Grant, Pool)
LONDON (AP) — A senior member of the British government on Wednesday denied he’s plotting to oust Prime Minister Keir Starmer, in a sign of deep anxiety in the Labour Party over its dire poll ratings less than 18 months after a landslide election victory.
Health Secretary Wes Streeting said talk of a leadership challenge by Labour officials and lawmakers is “self-defeating and self-destructive.†He spoke after aides to the prime minister preemptively told British media outlets that Starmer would fight any leadership challenge.
“It’s totally self-defeating briefing, not least because it’s not true,†he told Sky News. He said “whoever’s been briefing this has been watching too much ‘Celebrity Traitors'," referring to the hit reality TV show that pits faithful members of a group against conniving enemies within.
The 42-year-old health secretary is one of the government’s most effective communicators and is widely tipped as a future party leader.
A challenge this early in a government’s five-year term would be highly unusual. But Labour lawmakers are gloomy about opinion polls that consistently put Labour well behind the hard-right Reform UK party led by – though ahead of the main opposition , which faces crises of its own.
They are nervous about the annual on Nov. 26, which is expected to include income tax hikes, breaking an election promise.
Since being elected in July 2024, Starmer’s government has struggled to deliver on its pledges to get the economy growing, repair and ease the cost of living. remains stubbornly high, unemployment has risen and the economic outlook subdued.
Latest figures released Tuesday showed that the jobless rate has gone up to 5% in the three months to September from 4.8% in the previous three months -- the highest since 2016 once the COVID-19 pandemic years were factored out.
Under Labour Party rules, a lawmaker can mount a leadership challenge if they have the support of 20% of their colleagues, a threshold that currently stands at 81 members of Parliament.
Britain’s parliamentary political system allows a governing party to change prime minister without the need for an early election, though unelected prime ministers face pressure to demonstrate their legitimacy by going to voters.
The U.K. had three Conservative prime ministers – , and – between the last two elections in December 2019 and July 2024.
