𝓤𝓷𝓲𝓽𝓮𝓭 𝓝𝓮𝔀𝓼

Wes Streeting is expected to resign from the Government on Thursday and fire the starting gun on a three-way Labour leadership contest, with allies of Sir Keir Starmer understood to be braced for Ed Miliband to throw his hat into the ring shortly afterwards.

On Wednesday morning, ahead of the King’s Speech, the Health Secretary spent 16 minutes in a face-to-face meeting with Sir Keir at No 10, with reports suggesting he had privately signalled to colleagues that Thursday would be the day he acts.

To trigger a formal leadership challenge, Mr Streeting must secure the backing of 81 Labour MPs – a threshold he has been working urgently to meet.

Will Sir Keir Starmer fight a Labour leadership contest?

Despite the pressure bearing down on him, Sir Keir’s allies insist he has no intention of standing aside. The Prime Minister is said to be planning to stand against Mr Streeting and an anticipated challenger from the party’s left wing, fighting any rivals to remain in Downing Street.

At a fractious Cabinet meeting on Monday, the Prime Minister effectively dared his critics to come at him, warning that nothing short of the full 81 MP threshold would dislodge him. An attempt to force him from office without a formal challenge was dismissed outright.

Will Ed Miliband stand for the Labour leadership?

Labour sources told The Telegraph that the soft-Left faction of the party was likely to put forward the Environment Secretary as its candidate, given that Angela Rayner, the former deputy prime minister, faces unresolved tax issues, while Andy Burnham is ineligible to stand as he is not currently an MP.

The Environment Secretary has repeatedly ruled out a return to the Labour leadership, telling allies the experience of heading the party from 2010 to 2015 left him with what he called the “inoculation technique”, meaning he had no appetite to go through it again. However, his allies believe he would secure sufficient MP backing to mount a challenge, even as his wife, Justine Thornton, is understood to be opposed to him entering the race for a second time.

What is happening with Andy Burnham and the Labour leadership?

Mr Burnham’s path to the contest is complicated by his absence from the Commons. The timetable for any leadership election would be set by Labour’s ruling National Executive Committee (NEC), and it is considered unlikely to be lengthy enough to allow the Mayor of Greater Manchester to return to Westminster via a by-election.

Those around Mr Burnham have been pressing the NEC to allow a lengthier process, hoping it would give him time to return to the Commons, though one ally acknowledged on Wednesday that he faced being “squeezed out of the race.”

Friends of Mr Burnham have floated the possibility of a surprise pact with Mr Streeting, in which he would back the Health Secretary in exchange for a Cabinet position, a theory that allies of the Prime Minister have also discussed, believing a joint Burnham-Streeting ticket could be deployed to defeat Sir Keir.

According to The Telegraph, two people close to Mr Burnham said he had already earmarked a constituency to target in a by-election, with his visit to London on Tuesday understood to have coincided with a sitting MP allegedly agreeing to stand down to make way for him. However, Afzal Khan, the MP for Manchester Rusholme, denied on Wednesday night that he was prepared to step aside in Mr Burnham’s favour.

What would a Labour leadership contest mean for Britain?

Senior Whitehall figures painted a bleak picture of what a contest would mean, warning it would bring government to a standstill and send shockwaves through the bond markets. Currency markets reacted immediately, with the pound weakening against the dollar on Wednesday morning once Mr Streeting’s intentions became known. Government borrowing costs edged back only fractionally from a 28-year peak reached the previous day.

Members of Mr Streeting’s operation have been working the phones among Labour MPs, seeking pledges of support while making clear that initial backers would be free to switch allegiance to a rival once the contest was under way; a tactic previously employed by leadership contenders seeking to clear the threshold without guaranteed long-term support.