Politics Home Article | Wes Streeting Ally Resigns As Health Minister

Alamy

2 min read27 min

The Scottish Labour MP for Glasgow South West has said the “lack of values-driven leadership” at the centre of government has “undermined” his ministerial work in the health deparment. 

Ahmed is the fourth minister to resign from the government so far. He was preceeded by faith and communities minister Miatta Fahnbulleh, Home Office minister Jess Phillips and Justice minister Alex-Davies Jones.

The former minister is a close ally of Health Secretary Wes Streeting, who is expected to run for the Labour leadership if Keir Starmer steps down and a contest takes place. 

This latest resignation plunges the government into further chaos, taking the number of MPs calling for the Prime Minister’s resignation to 90. 

Ahmed said the election results in the Scotland last week were “as intolerable as it was avoidable”. 

In the letter, first published by The Guardian, he wrote: “The noise created at the centre of government you lead, inadvertently became the midwife for the delivery of an incompetent fifth term SNP government, and one which will now inflict more division and decay on my constituents of Glasgow South West.”

“Throughout the entirety of my surgical career, I have been guided by the principles of precision, clarity, candour and above all else an aspiration for excellence. 

Those are the principles that I have attempted to bring to Parliament and to my ministerial office. And it is those principles that sadly lead me to conclude that yur continuation in office is wholly untenable.” 

Calling for fresh leadership, he added: “I will forever be grateful for your decency and tireless work in turning our party around, in inhibiting in us all a sense of national duty before party. You also once said out work is urgent. I now ask you for the sake of that urgency and that national duty, to step aside and set a timetable for an expedient and orderly transition to new leadership that commands the confidence of our country.”