Keir Starmer has insisted he would fight any leadership challenge – but acknowledged he needed to “turn things around”.
After his Government was rocked by the resignation of Defence Secretary John Healey, the Prime Minister argued he’d made “hard-edged choices” to fund the long-delayed Defence Investment Plan (Dip) by asking all departments to cough up.
And he issued a veiled warning to his rivals, saying any would-be successor would face the same challenges to balance the books while keeping Britain safe. “I would just gently say this: that whoever is Prime Minister is going to face the same prevailing winds as I am facing,” he said.
The PM was dealt a significant blow by the shock resignation of Mr Healey, after bitter internal rows over how to fund military equipment and infrastructure over the next decade. He accused Mr Starmer of putting the nation’s safety at risk, saying he was “unable, and the Treasury has been unwilling” to stump up enough cash to fund the Dip.
Mr Healey was followed out the door by Al Carns, the Armed Forces Minister, and two ministerial aides.
View 2 ImagesDefence Secretary John Healey quit on Thursday with a blast at Keir Starmer’s military spending plans(Image: Getty Images)
The crisis comes at a moment of peril for Mr Starmer, only days away from the Makerfield by-election which could see his arch-rival Andy Burnham return to Parliament. Former Health Secretary Wes Streeting also has his eyes on the top job – but has said he would wait until after the by-election to mount a challenge.
But Mr Starmer told the BBC: “I’m not going to go away. I don’t think we should plunge the country into the chaos of a leadership election.”
He added: “I don’t think it should happen, but if it does then I will fight. And let me just be clear… That’s not about personal vanity, it’s not about stubbornness. It’s out of a very deep sense of duty.
“I was elected to serve this country. Notwithstanding the difficult circumstances, that is what I am doing. And in the last few weeks, others have made their own case. I’ve been concentrating on the job I was elected to do, which is to deliver for this country.”
Asked if he would lead Labour into the next general election, expected in 2029, he said: “Well, that’s what I want to do. I recognise that I’ve got to turn things around. We had a very bad set of elections.”
The explosive row over the funding of the defence plan has cast doubt over its credibility, as the £13.5billion proposed by Government falls well below demands from military chiefs. Defence sources said the offer amounted to only £10billion of extra cash, and said the remainder was “Treasury trickery”.
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But the PM said he had overseen “the biggest sustained increase in defence spending since the 1980s” and every government department had submitted cuts to non-frontline spending to help finance the Dip. “These are hard edged decisions,” he said. “Decisions in government involve trade-offs, so they always have to come with that second question: ‘Well, if you’re going to do that, what is it you wouldn’t do?’”
Downing Street said the Dip was still being finalised as new Defence Secretary Dan Jarvis and Chief of the Defence Staff, Air Chief Marshal Sir Richard Knighton, met the PM for talks on Friday.
The plan was originally due to published in autumn 2025 but the internal rows kicked the timeline back. Mr Starmer has now set a new deadline of July’s Nato summit.