Cogito Ergo Non Serviam
Opposition Challenges Labour Rebels to Act
This journal has said that the current challenge to Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer is over. Apparently, the 87 Labour party rebels in the House of Commons have not read the post. There is speculation that tomorrow Health Secretary Wes Streeting will resign to mount a leadership challenge. He is in need of 81 supporters, and there is further speculation that he can muster the numbers needed. Without the 81, there is no leadership contest. At this point, the opposition Conservative Party and the Liberal Democrats have urged the rebels to act, if they have the stomach for it. The world will find out in the next few days whether they do. This journal now believes they will try to remove the PM, and they will fail. In the process, though, they may mortally wound the government.
The first thing to note is that Mr. Streeting is the fourth name put forward for a possible challenge. Catherine West MP said over the weekend that she would challenge Sir Keir unless the cabinet removed him. She has since lost her nerve. Many argue that Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham is the man, but without a seat in Westminster, he is just another name. There is Angela Rayner, the former deputy PM, but she has a financial scandal to deal with as she allegedly underpaid stamp duty on a house she bought to the tune of 40,000 quid. So, the anti-Starmer crowd are looking at Mr. Streeting.
There are a couple of difficulties with his candidacy. First and foremost, he is not all that different ideologically from Sir Keir. In other words, it will be the same policies more or less with a different salesman. In politics, that rarely works for very long. He would do nothing to excite those who want a less incrementalist government. Second, he might not have the votes.
The Labour Party rules are simple. A challenger must have, in writing, the support of 20% of the Parliamentary Labour Party, or for now, 81 MPs signatures. Given that 87 have already said they want Sir Keir out, one might think Mr. Streeting will get his 81. However, wanting the PM out is not the same as wanting Mr. Streeting in. The Jeremy Corbyn hard-left has no dog in this fight, so why would they turf the PM out in favor of the challenger? Meanwhile, the PM has put out a statement saying that 110 MPs have stated their support for him, meaning that any challenger will start out 30 votes behind.
Enter Kemi Badenoch, the Tory leader, and Sir Ed Davey, leader of the Lib Dems. Ms. Badenoch suggested that the PM was "in office but not in power." She then mocked the rebels noting "They want to lead our country. They can't even lead a coup." Sir Ed was more direct. He stated today that the Lib Dems will vote against the King's Speech which Charles III delivered earlier today setting out the program Labour proposes for the next session of parliament. Then, he wondered how many of the rebels in Labour would do the same. He noted if they all did, the government would have a narrow majority if it had one at all.
If the King's Speech were voted down, the PM would have to ask the king to dissolve parliament and hold a general election. That is the very last thing the rebels want. They seek to change leaders because they fear losing their seats if things continue as they are. Based on the election results from last week, most of them would be out of work. That gives the PM the ability to threaten them with his own resignation. Nothing is stopping him from going to the palace now and calling a snap election. He would almost certainly lose, but if he is going to be out of Number 10, he might want to take down the comrades who knifed him in the back.
In the end, one expects Mr. Streeting to mount a challenge and for it to fail. The damage, however, will have been done. The Tories changed prime ministers from Teresa May to Boris Johnson to Liz Truss to Rishi Sunak in just a few years. It did them no good. Sir Keir won a 174-seat majority. If Labour starts moving leaders around, Reform will win the next general election. It is not too late to prevent that, but Westminster seems unaware of the consequences of this rebellion.
© Copyright 2026 by The Kensington Review, Jeff Myhre, PhD, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent. Produced using Ubuntu Linux.
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