The pressure is piling on Keir Starmer.
Sky News was halted for urgent breaking news as presenter Beth Rigby revealed that Health Secretary Wes Streeting has officially resigned. This comes after Jess Phillips and Alex Davies-Jones also stepped down from Prime Minister Keir Starmer‘s Labour leadership. Addressing viewers, Beth announced: “The Health Secretary Wes Streeting has handed in his letter of resignation to the Prime Minister… within the last 60 seconds, putting it on social media.
Beth stated: “He put out a letter on his X account, a two-page letter that he is standing down from government. He has said in this letter, ‘having lost confidence in your leadership, I have concluded it would be dishonourable and unprincipled to remain in post.'” “He said, ‘Where we need vision, we have a vacuum, where we need direction, we have drift.'”
Beht Rigby commented on the shock resignation (Image: Sky News)
Reading out key points from the letter, the presenter shared: “‘As a member of your Government, I know better than most that governing is hard, it should be, because it matters.’
“‘There are enormous challenges facing this country, for the first time in our history, the next generation faces a worse inheritance than the last.”
Beth interjected: “He [Streeting] also said, ‘leaders take responsibility, but too often that is when people fall in on their swords,’ that is clearly quite an open criticism of Keir Starmer, who has said he is taking responsibility for election losses from the stakes over the appointment of Peter Mandelson, but has remained in post when so many others have left.”
Listing the MPs that have stepped down amid the local election results, she added: “That is his Chief of Staff, Morgan McSweeney, Director of Communications, Tim Allen, and of course, the Head of the Foreign Office, having to quit.
“He says at the end of the letter, ‘it is now clear you will not lead the Labour Party into the next General Election and that Labour MPs and Labour unions want the debate about what comes next to be a battle of ideas, not personalities or petty factualism.”
Wes Streeting sent his resignation letter to Starmer (Image: Getty)
The Sky News star remarked: “That is interesting because what has been going on all morning is that we have been waiting for Wes Streeting to move
“We have been waiting essentially for Wes Streeting’s resignation. It became very clear to me last night that whether or not Wes Streeting had the numbers to challenge the Prime Minister and trigger a leadership battle, we’d need 81 backers to do so.
“But given what happened yesterday, in the past 48 hours, it was unsustainable for him to remain in Keir Starmer’s cabinet.”
In his letter, the MP seemingly pointed out specific reasons for the “unpopularity” of the current government, including the decision to cut the winter fuel allowance and the “island of strangers” speech made by Starmer in May 2025.
He wrote to Starmer: “You also need to listen to your colleagues, including backbenchers, and the heavy-handed approach to dissenting voices diminishes our politics.”