Wes Streeting: ‘Leadership plans? Don’t underestimate my loyalty to Keir’

Wes Streeting has insisted “people should not underestimate my loyalty” to leader Sir Keir Starmer after being quizzed about his aspirations to become leader of the Labour Party.

Speaking exclusively to Jewish News, the shadow health secretary, said it was “flattering” to be told he was now viewed by many as a future successor to Starmer, as a result of his impressive performance so far.

The Ilford North MP said: “As for my own leadership prospects – flattering as though these sorts of questions are – people should not underestimate my loyalty to Keir.

“I think he is the best candidate for Prime Minister this country has ever had, at least since Labour last left government in 2010… he pushes me forwards.

“He didn’t have to put me in the shadow cabinet after my cancer diagnosis, I assumed he wouldn’t, but he did.

“He’s given me the massive privilege of being shadow health secretary. The only job now that I wish I had was health secretary, rather than shadow.”

Streeting then added: “Everything I see about Keir… he is so focused on the challenge.

“Whenever he is presented with a choice, either the easy quiet life or the hard choice that leads us closer to a general election victory, he always chooses the hard choices,”that’s what you want in a leader. ”

In a wide-ranging interview, Streeting said Labour now found itself in a place that was “liberating compared to where we were under Jeremy Corbyn.”

He said Starmer’s grip on issues such as the party’s antisemitism crisis meant that “certainly amongst my Jewish constituents there’s a lot more confidence now.”

But Streeting then added: “That doesn’t mean we are complacent or taking people for granted and just assuming Jewish people are going to flock back to Labour because we are taking antisemitism seriously.

“That should be the least of people’s expectations, that we take antisemitism seriously.

“But I hope people are reassured by the fact that when Keir said he would have zero tolerance he meant it.”

Pointing to the fact that the party had “taken the EHRC report very seriously”, the continued removal of the whip from Jeremy Corbyn, and the fact that “so many people who are guilty of antisemitism have been expelled”, Streeting admitted it could still be “frustrating” issues around “individual cases” which had not been resolved yet.

“There has to be due process, fair process, ” Streeting reasoned. “And that can take a little while.”

But he insisted that those who had “not taken antisemitism seriously” with the party were now themselves “either marginalised, expelled or had left”.

Streeting then warned: “If you are someone who thinks antisemitism is a smear or a scam, the Labour Party really isn’t for you. And that’s the bottom line.”

Assessing the change that had already taken place in the party Streeting, said the cultural change had happened “a lot more quickly than even I was expecting and hoping for” over the past two years.

If you are someone who thinks antisemitism is a smear or a scam, the Labour Party really isn’t for you. And that’s the bottom line

“I can tell with Keir that he really means it,” he added. “It’s liberating for me because I was one of those MPs who had to speak up regularly.

“That led to a huge amount of abuse directed towards me. But that was nowhere near the amount of abuse that was directed towards Jewish members of the party, particularly Jewish women MPs.

“But I think in the end we have all been vindicated for the way we stood, and the way we fought, and the change that we brought about in the Labour Party.”

Streeting spoke to Jewish News on last Sunday morning, as he joined a canvassing session with local members in Barnet, ahead of the May local elections.

He said he “felt really sorry for a lot of brilliant people in the Barnet Labour Party, particularly Jewish members and others, who had fought against antisemitism “but had failed to see their party gain power in the borough for over two decades.

“I think they may have taken Barnet last time around if it hadn’t had the awful backdrop of Labour’s antisemitism crisis,” he said.

“I’m optimistic about Barnet this time around though. Barnet Council is such a terrible Tory council. I really hope people vote for change in Barnet in May.”

Streeting is also quick to dismiss claims that a general election – whenever it may arrive over the next two years – will come too quickly for Labour to realistically overturn the Tory party’s 80 seat majority.

“I can’t stand the lack of ambition that says this is a two-term project,” argues Streeting. Although he does except that after Labour’s drubbing in 2019, “even a determined optimist like me struggled to see how we would come back in one term.”

But he added: “I now genuinely think the next general election is there for the taking.

“And I think that is in no small part due to the change that Keir has led since he’s been leader.

I now genuinely think the next general election is there for the taking.

“He is serious about the task in hand, which contrasts with a Prime Minister who does not take the job seriously.

“He’s just a really decent person, a genuine person, who is in it for the right reasons.

“And I think he will be an outstanding PM. But politics is a team sport, he can’t do it on his own, and I am very proud to support him.”

Streeting has long held a reputation as a hard-working MP, and we spoke during a short break for lunch, (a tasty one too) at Benny’s Diner in Edgware before Streeting and his advisor Matt Goddin drove to Colchester in Essex to continue campaigning with activists there.

Streeting’s ambition has never been in doubt, ever since he became National Union of Students president in 2008, with the support of the Union of Jewish Students.

From here he was elected as a councillor on Redbridge Council in 2010, and after Labour took control of the council for the first time in 2014, Streeting was made deputy leader.

One year later he overturned a Tory majority of over 5,000 to become the Ilford North MP at the general election. When Corbyn became leader Streeting openly spoke out accusing him of a “flat-footed and lackadaisical attitude” to tackling antisemitism which is “simply unacceptable”.

At the 2017 election, Streeting said he was not going to pretend to have had a “damascene conversation” with regard to Corbyn’s suitability to be PM.

His repeated criticism of Corbyn led to condemnation of Streeting from some of the former leader’s closest allies, including Ken Livingstone who accused him of “damaging” Labour and from Len McCluskey who said the Ilford MP was actively attempting to “undermine” Corbyn.

A supporter of the Labour Friends of Israel organisation, Streeting is a vice-chair of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Antisemitism.

Recognised by most in the community as one of our staunchest supporters – even though he is not Jewish himself – some on the political right have attempted to suggest Streeting’s support for Labour Friends of Palestine and his statements on alleged human rights abuses committed by Israel, should not be overlooked.

In March 2021, Streeting received what could have been a damaging blow to his flourishing political career after a hospital operation on a kidney stone led to the discovery he had kidney cancer.

Because the cancer was diagnosed early the prognosis was good, but Streeting admits the past 12 months, in which he took a brief break from Westminster, have impacted on his outlook moving forwards.

“I very much see myself now as the patient’s champion,” he says, immediately using a frightening life experience to influence his political actions.

“Although I wouldn’t have wished for it, it does help that I have had a lot of experience in the last 12 months from going into A&E at 5am in the morning , to chasing up scans, and sometimes having to chase up scans quite a lot.”

I very much see myself now as the patient’s champion

Streeting reveals he had his treatment at the Royal Free Hospital in Hampstead, north London, which gave him experience of “being on a ward with brilliant nurses, but also seeing how they were left short handed.”

He added: “That gives me an awful lot of experience to be a really great patients’ champion. That’s now my focus.”

Streeting said he was also able to witness staff, including Jewish doctors, working flat out to help save and treat every single patient brought in to see them.

“I think the NHS is one of our greatest institutions, one of the greatest this country has ever known,” he adds. “It was created by a Labour government, but it was built by the British people.

“When you look at the diversity of the NHS workforce, people from all walks of life, and from all across the world, this is such a strength.”

But unsurprisingly, Streeting is deeply critical of the Conservative Party’s record on the NHS, a point he had made repeatedly after being appointed into the shadow health role last November.

On a personal level, he says he likes current Health Secretary Sajid Javid, but having read his interview with Jewish News this week, Streeting says: “It’s a bit rich for Sajid to announce a war on cancer when the Tories have spent more than a decade dismantling the NHS in that fight.”

After last weeks Spring Statement from Rishi Sunak, Streeting also claimed the chancellor had “constrained” Javid in a “straight jacket.”

He said: “The on-going costs of Covid, Sajid Javid told the treasury he needed £5 million and he came away with nothing. Now we find the NHS is being asked to find savings within its own budget.”

Streeting also says he noted how Javid had highlighted the fact that Jewish women from an Ashkenazi background were more like to get breast cancer as a result of the BRCA gene.

“In that context,” said Streeting, “the fact that fewer than half of all women with suspected breast cancer are seen within the recommended two weeks, and the fact that figure has got progressively worse every year the Conservatives have been in government – I just think this is a last ditch attempt at the tail end of a government to pretend they’ve been doing something, other than making worse.”

Streeting gives little respect to the view that the NHS is receiving record funding from the government, nor that the impact of the Covid pandemic must be taken into consideration.

“Conservative ministers highlight the Covid backlog, but it isn’t just a Covid backlog, it’s a Conservative backlog,” says Streeting. ” We went into the pandemic with NHS waiting lists already at a record four and half million, and with 100, 000 staff shortages, and for diagnosis and outcomes for breast cancer patients and many others being worse than they were when Labour left office.

“I think this is a decade of failure in terms of the Tories’ management of the NHS.”

Streeting says an appearance on BBC’ Question Time early this month left him “heartened” about the way the British people were holding British politicians to account to “do more” to help the people of Ukraine during the current  Russian invasion.

“I think that’s brilliant, whether it comes to helping Ukrainian refugees or “even more importantly I’d argue, arming the Ukrainians to liberate their country and push the Russians back,” he adds.

Out campaigning for his party on the streets of Barnet, Streeting said that amongst local voters, including many from the community, alongside obvious concerns over Ukraine, it was apparent that all families, and “not just the poorest were beginning to feel the pinch as result of the cost of living crisis.”

Fortunately, as we split the bill, after an excellent kosher lunch in Edgware, the bill, this time around, was not too expensive.

Streeting then contemplated the 90 minute journey ahead of him before he got to Colchester: “We’ve still got a lot to do, as Keir would say, to turn hostility and apathy towards the Tories into a positive vote for Labour.”