{"id":260184,"date":"2025-11-13T09:28:07","date_gmt":"2025-11-13T09:28:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/260184\/"},"modified":"2025-11-13T09:28:07","modified_gmt":"2025-11-13T09:28:07","slug":"if-no-10-briefer-is-found-keir-starmer-will-sack-them-minister-says-labour-party-leadership","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/260184\/","title":{"rendered":"If No 10 briefer is found Keir Starmer will sack them, minister says | Labour party leadership"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ed Miliband has said he was certain Keir Starmer would sack whoever had briefed against Wes Streeting<\/a>, after a chaotic 48 hours in which No 10 launched an operation to shore up the prime minister against an anticipated leadership challenge.<\/p>\n

The prime minister apologised to the health secretary in a phone call with him late on Wednesday. Starmer is facing mounting calls to sack his chief of staff, Morgan McSweeney<\/a>, over the row.<\/p>\n

The Guardian reported<\/a> that in private meetings with MPs on Wednesday, the prime minister stood by his chief of staff and would not directly commit to any consequences for those who had briefed the newspapers.<\/p>\n

Miliband said he believed Starmer would not have authorised any of the personal attacks, but said briefing was a \u201clongstanding aspect of politics\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve talked to Keir before about this kind of briefing that happens and as he always says, if he finds the person, he\u2019ll get rid of them. And I absolutely believe he would do that,\u201d he told Sky News.<\/p>\n

Starmer and Streeting spoke briefly on Wednesday, the first time the pair have been in contact since the briefing war broke out. Starmer is said to have apologised to the health secretary but stopped short of making any other commitments, saying only they should speak again soon.<\/p>\n

In further attempts to contain the row, the Labour<\/a> chair, Anna Turley, told ITV on Wednesday night that there would be an investigation into who had specifically briefed against Streeting and that Starmer would \u201ctake action\u201d against the culprit. It is not believed to be a formal leak inquiry.<\/p>\n

Miliband told Sky News that Starmer would \u201chate all this nonsense\u201d but said it was a common problem in politics.<\/p>\n

\u201cI hate the culture of briefing. But there is a longstanding aspect of politics. As I say, I was there between Blair and Brown \u2026 So look, these things unfortunately happen, but what matters is staying focused on the mission.<\/p>\n

\u201cTurbulence is part of the gig, is part of the DNA of being in government. What gets you through is keeping your eyes on the prize of what you care about, what you\u2019re trying to do.\u201d<\/p>\n

Streeting mounted a furious defence of his actions<\/a> on morning shows on Wednesday, saying: \u201cWhoever has been briefing this has been watching too much Celebrity Traitors. It\u2019s the most unjustified attack against the faithfuls since Joe Marler<\/a> was banished in the final.\u201d<\/p>\n

However, Labour MPs were left scratching their heads at the timing of Downing Street\u2019s intervention, which the Guardian revealed on Tuesday night, with the focus switching to whether McSweeney could survive in post.<\/p>\n

One cabinet minister said: \u201cIf it was an orchestrated campaign to shore up the PM, then it\u2019s had the opposite effect; it\u2019s spectacularly backfired. I don\u2019t see how Morgan can survive when Keir has ended up in a weaker position than before.\u201d<\/p>\n

One minister said they thought No 10\u2019s paranoia was partly justified. \u201cI will defend them to a degree because everyone can see that Wes is in fact running a leadership campaign and that it has been the talk of the PLP [parliamentary Labour party]. We know that. We can see it.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut I don\u2019t think they intended to personalise this about Wes, and that has been their great mistake. They wanted to show Keir had some fight in him and it has backfired catastrophically.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ed Miliband has said he was certain Keir Starmer would sack whoever had briefed against Wes Streeting, after…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":260185,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[49,50,51,47,52,48],"class_list":{"0":"post-260184","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/260184","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=260184"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/260184\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/260185"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=260184"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=260184"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=260184"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}