Poll reveals who is most likely to beat Starmer in a leadership contest
This doesn't look good for Wes Streeting...
Keir Starmer’s premiership remains in peril, with the health secretary Wes Streeting the most prominent resignation from the government so far.
While Streeting’s resignation letter didn’t immediately trigger a leadership contest, his departure nonetheless suggests that an election could be imminent.
There are two routes for this. First, Starmer could decide that he no longer has the confidence of his parliamentary party, and choose to either stand down or set out a timetable for his departure. The other route would be if a 81 Labour MPs nominate an alternative candidate for leader of the Labour Party.
In the latter scenario, Starmer may well decide to fight the leadership contest. Indeed, he has made clear that he intends to. And we now have some insight as to who might win in a head-to-head battle with Starmer.
New polling, conducted by Survation on behalf of LabourList has assessed the mood of Labour Party members on a potential contest.
The poll suggests that the most likely candidate to beat Starmer is Andy Burnham. However, the route to Burnham getting on the ballot remains unclear, given he is not currently in the House of Commons and the Labour Party rulebook requires the party leader to be an MP.
According to the poll, 61 per cent of Labour members would back Burnham, compared to 28 per cent who would back Starmer.
The other candidates who the poll suggests would beat Starmer are Angela Rayner (4 point lead), Ed Miliband (8 point lead).
In bad news for Streeting, the poll has found that just 23 per cent of members would vote for him in a head-to-head contest with Starmer, with 53 per cent backing the prime minister.
Starmer would also see off challenges from Bridget Philipson (21 point Starmer lead), Lucy Powell (24 point Starmer lead), Shabana Mahmood (51 point Starmer leader), Darren Jones (15 point Starmer lead), Al Carns (28 point Starmer lead), Yvette Cooper (14 point Starmer lead) and Louise Haigh (21 point Starmer lead).
If Starmer doesn’t end up on the ballot, it doesn’t seem that Streeting has a clear route to victory. The Survation poll also asked Labour members who they would back in a head-to-head contest with Streeting up against a variety of other potential candidates.
According to the poll, Streeting would lose against every candidate except Shabana Mahmood.
Burnham would beat Streeting by 53 points, Rayner would beat him by 25 points, Miliband would beat him by 28 points and Powell would beat him by 11 points.
Mahmood would, however, lose to Streeting by 24 points.
Chris Jarvis is head of strategy and development at Left Foot Forward
Image credit: Simon Dawson / Number 10 – Creative Commons
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