Ed Miliband Considers Labour Leadership Bid

Ed Miliband is mulling a Labour leadership bid as a ‘stop Streeting’ candidate if the health secretary fires the starting gun on a contest as soon as tomorrow.

The health secretary is expected to quit the cabinet and announce that he is challenging Keir Starmer in the wake of Labour’s drubbing in last week’s elections.

Labour sources say Miliband, who led the party between 2010 and 2015, is taking soundings from MPs before deciding whether to run as a soft-left candidate to stop Streeting becoming prime minister.

One said: “His team have gone dark – they are definitely organising.”

Significantly, Miliband has not commented publicly since Starmer delivered a major speech on Monday setting out how he plans to turn around Labour’s fortunes.

It is thought he would stand aside if Andy Burnham returned to Westminster and threw his hat into the ring.

But he first needs to win an as-yet unannounced by-election to become an MP again – a process that could take months.

If a speedy leadership contest takes place and Burnham cannot run, however, Miliband is expected to be a candidate, and is thought to be more likely than Streeting to win given his greater popularity with Labour members.

The other big figure on Labour’s soft-left, Angela Rayner, is still being investigated by His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs over her tax affairs and is not thought to have enough support from MPs at this stage.

Under Labour rules, any challenger would need the support of one-fifth of the party’s MPs, which at the moment is 81.

As the sitting leader, Starmer would automatically go on the ballot paper, and has told allies he is determined to stand.

The PM is understood to have spent today meeting ministers and Labour MPs in a bid to rally support behind him.

Cabinet ministers loyal to the prime minister have also been in the Commons tearoom urging Labour MPs not to back any challenge to his leadership and “plunge the party into chaos”.

They said any contest would “paralyse” the government for months.

Starmer’s latest leadership crisis completely overshadowed the King’s Speech setting out his government’s plans for the new parliamentary session.

Home Office minister Mike Tapp told HuffPost UK: “There should not be a leadership race. We are two years in and have a great opportunity to work with the PM to turn the country around.

“A contest would be damaging for the country and there are no scenarios that play out well. The PM and all politicians have lots of work to do, we must be allowed to get on with the job.”

Labour MP Phil Brickell, another Starmer supporter, said: “Politics is about policy, not personalities.

“We’ve just seen the government set out its policy stall for the next 12 months. Each and every one of us should be focusing on delivering that collective mission to the best of our ability. That’s what the public wants. It’s what they deserve. And it’s what putting the country first, party second looks like.

“Wes can’t win with the membership.”

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