It was going to take something explosive and extraordinary to divert the newspaper front pages and the broadcast bulletins from the violent backlash to the horrific events in Southampton and Belfast. Well, it happened on June 11th with the full force of a political nuclear missile in the shape of John Healey’s brutal resignation letter as defence secretary. Aptly headlined in Times sketch writer Tom Peck’s column: ‘This WMD was delivered on House of Commons notepaper’. And the repercussions haven’t stopped dominating the news cycle ever since. Not least against the countdown to this week’s Makerfield by-election in which the future of Keir Starmer’s premiership, the fate of the Labour government ultimately hangs.
Inevitably, the right-wing papers revelled in Healey’s “principled” resignation, an opportunity gifted by the fact that the defence secretary was generally recognised as an honourable politician and hitherto a Starmer loyalist and defender who had finally been forced to put the nation’s interest above party interest.
‘GOD HELP US!’ screamed the Daily Mail’s June 12th splash headline beneath a ‘BRITAIN LEFT DEFENCELESS’ strapline and alongside the paper’s longstanding campaign logo, ‘Don’t leave BRITAIN defenceless’.
When loyalist becomes assassin
Inside, Defence Editor Mark Nicol’s take was headlined, ‘Day the PM’s most loyal lieutenant turned into his political assassin’.
The opening paragraph: “John Healey has inflicted what may prove a fatal wound to the Prime Minister, and by so doing positioned himself as a possible replacement for Keir Starmer.”
So far, Healey and his allies have dismissed any thought of him entering the looming Labour leadership contest. But good sources tell me a group of influential Labour MPs on the right and in the centre of the party are working on changing Healey’s mind. Motivated by the fear that if – as the polls indicate – ‘King of the North’ Andy Burnham sees off Reform in Makerfield and mounts his leadership challenge, he is too behoven to the party’s left to be a prime minister willing to introduce the level of defence spending that brought about Healey’s resignation, followed shortly by that of Armed Forces Minister Al Carns, the much-decorated ‘Action Man’ former marine colonel who confirmed on Laura Kuenssberg’s BBC Sunday show that he will throw his cap into the leadership campaign. Cunningly, Carns had delayed his own resignation letter on June 12th until after he’d given damning interviews about the PM and chancellor’s positions on defence to Sky and the BBC. “He thought it more impactful to do it while still in office than after he’d quit”, mused one ally.
Elsewhere in the Mail, the headline over Quentin Letts sketch ‘Noble yet deadly. This was the best defence secretary resignation since Michael Heseltine’ certainly had the ring of truth.
The Mail main leader headline was brutal too, ‘Spineless Starmer’s defence con trick’. It opened with: “Now we have it from the horse’s mouth. Labour’s commitment to properly invest in Britain’s armed forces, long suspected to be hollow, is proved to be nothing more than an apparition. John Healey’s resignation as defence secretary has exposed the full, sickening truth: Sir Keir is planning to make Britain ‘less safe’. Even this Starmer loyalist could not sit idly by and remain in charge of the MoD after reading the government’s long-delayed Defence Investment Plan.
“Mr Healey was handed the full proposals on Monday afternoon, his excoriating resignation letter revealed, and less than 72 hours later he nobly fell upon his sword.”
Country before party
The Times main leader of June 12th took a similar line with the main headline: ‘Country Before Party… the defence secretary’s principled resignation over the failure of the prime minister and chancellor to adequately fund national defence is a damning indictment of both’. Its opening paragraph: “Well done, John Healey. The now former defence secretary shows that, even in this shallow age, when politics is more a career path than a calling, there remain a few politicians who can distinguish between the national interest and party interest and put them in the right order.”
The leader concluded: “What to do? If Sir Keir wishes to salvage what is left of his reputation, he must overrule his chancellor and increase defence spending substantially without violating established fiscal rules. Speed is vital. If Andy Burnham wins the Makerfield on Thursday and topples Sir Keir as leader, he will be presented with a shopping list by Labour MPs. Defence is a huge employer in his native Northwest but there is no guarantee he will prioritise it over welfare. Regrettably, Sir Keir appears to be digging in, offering the preposterous views that the planned funding is adequate. Mr Healey put country before party. That does not seem to be the Starmer way.”
But if the right-wing papers were opportunistically predictable, those on the left offered cold comfort for Starmer, a prime minister whose authority and hold on power increasingly hang by the thinnest of gossamer threads.
‘Healey’s shock resignation leaves Starmer on the brink’, the Guardian’s front page lead headline (June 12) with the story emphasising the key lines from the letter accusing the PM and Chancellor Rachel Reeves of putting the country’s security at risk in dangerous times. “You have been unable and the Treasury has been unwilling to commit the resources that the nation needs to defend the country at this time of rising threats. I would not be able to accept a DIP settlement that does not give our forces the resources they need.”
Quiet man with steely poise
Inside, Senior Political Correspondent Peter Walker wasn’t totally dismissing a potential Healey leadership bid, describing the resignation note as having “hidden messages to the PM and hints at ambitions”.
Calling Healey the “Quiet man with steely poise”, Walker wrote: “If there was one thing for which Downing Street could rely on with John Healey, it was avoiding unnecessary drama. Whether in parliament or on the morning broadcast round, his sober suits and general demeanour of a benign but firm head teacher spelled reassurance.
“But then just before 12.10 pm yesterday, the drama arrived in. In a letter posted on social media, Healey resigned as defence secretary, a job he held whether in government or its shadow equivalent, from the moment Keir Starmer became Labour leader.
“I wish you all continuing strength in the exceptional challenges you face as prime minister”, Healey ended … a line Walker describes as “shot through with something close to menace”.
Walker continued: “Such a move is also less of a surprise than it might seem. Despite his managerial veneer and quiet approach, Healey is a highly political operator who has spent nearly 30 years in parliament and held front bench jobs under every Labour leader from Tony Blair onward.
“If Starmer had come to forget the fundamental political core of his defence secretary, he had an early warning of what might be to come in May, when Healey was one of four senior cabinet ministers to speak to the PM after the disastrous local election results to discuss the possibility of Starmer making way for someone else. After the defence secretary’s resignation, this idea seems more likely than ever. Does Healey want to replace him? Seemingly not. He is 66 and allies say Number 10 does not feature in his ambitions. But will he get a senior role in another government? Most likely. Expect to see Healey back on the morning airwaves at some point, once again radiating reassurance.”
Honourable Healey vs the King of the North?
That said, there are undoubtedly Labour MPs who want to change Healey’s mind. They believe he isn’t persuaded by the idea of Andy Burnham as Starmer’s successor, is alarmed by the scale of general spending pledges being tossed around by the ‘King of the North’ in the Makerfield campaign or convinced by Burnham telling The Times that he would be willing to cut into the welfare budget to boost defence spending.
As one of those working on Healey put it to me: “Some of us are dismayed by the profligate promises Andy is making to win Makerfield and further his prime ministerial dream. But what Britain needs in a Labour prime minister right now is a grown-up reassuring figure and John Healey is the ultimate Reassurance Man.”
Other leading Guardian columnists were as damning for Starmer’s tottering premiership as their right-wing rivals. ‘John Healey is a loyalist – when he walks away, that’s a crisis’, the headline on a Gaby Hinsliff column. Writing: “John Healey is not a rash man. Slow to anger, calm in a crisis, loyal and yet beneath it all, formidably determined. He stuck at it through the Jeremy Corbyn years, much as he privately despaired of where the party was heading, keeping his thoughts to himself because all he wanted was for Labour to win again. When it did, under Starmer, he became the understated anchor to a frequently gale-tossed ship of government; the solid citizen everybody liked and nobody distrusted, a natural choice for caretaker leader had Starmer ever fallen under a bus, or, perhaps, been pushed under a tank. For a defence secretary to resign just weeks before a critical NATO summit, in the middle of conflict in the Gulf and on the eve of a domestic by-election that will determine his party’s future, is extraordinary in itself. But it’s that bayonet of a resignation letter – painting the prime minister as weak and impotent, incapable of even of finding the money to keep the nation safe – that now threatens to finish off an already badly-wounded premiership.” Her concluding line: “If drafted, would Healey himself ever agree to serve? The rocket is launched. The only thing we don’t know yet is where it might be heading.”
Fellow Guardian columnists John Crace and Marina Hyde, among others, were equally scathing and mocking.
Determination, desperation, delusion
But, so far, Keir Starmer appears determined to try and ride out the storm. Even as the ranks of allies suggesting resignation grows by the day. The PM even granted BBC Political Editor Chris Mason an extended interview in which he expressed his intention to stand and fight any leadership challenge, whether by Burnham or any other contender. It smacked of determination, desperation and delusion combined.
Without doubt, the Healey resignation has blown an irreparable black hole in Keir Starmer’s hitherto fairly successful image as the tough-talking leader of NATO’s European members. With political and senior military allies of Healey and Cairns flagging up that the DIP commitment that triggered their resignations means that the UK is lagging behind most of its European partners in defence spending. In short, that Sir Keir talks a big game but with relatively empty pockets.
Operation Fubar … Fucked Up Beyond All Repair
It was a sign of the PM’s perilous position that it took several hours of silence before announcing former paratrooper government minister Dan Jarvis into the defence secretary role. On the face of it, the best available pick, although word is that it took Jarvis some time to agree to be parachuted in because, according to allies, he privately shares many of the Healey / Cairns damning criticisms, but is hoping (against hope?) that an increasingly desperate Starmer or his successor will be forced to somehow stump up the extra billions. Either through a manifesto breaching hike in general taxation, hefty cuts in welfare or extra borrowing on the strict basis it is for defence alone. But the markets are unlikely to have been impressed by a Times front page suggesting that Ed Miliband, one of Burnham’s biggest supporters, is pressing hard to become chancellor if he succeeds in winning Makerfield on Thursday and rapidly ousting Starmer in a leadership battle. According to The Times, Miliband is refusing to take the PM’s calls which really ought to be a sackable offence.
‘Operation Fubar: even Keir Starmer’s team players are abandoning the field of battle’, was the headline on the Observer’s well-connected veteran Labour simpatico chief political columnist Andrew Rawnsley’s Sunday take. Operation Fubar? The deserters’ term for ‘Fucked up beyond all repair’ apparently. Pointing up that the last-minute settlement that sparked the Healey resignation amounted to just £10bn of new money not the £28bn over the next four years that the defence secretary and military chiefs insisted was essential.
Echoing so many others, Rawnsley argued: “The Healey resignation is all the more striking because he is not one of politics’ troublemakers. He is a centrist and a pragmatist. In many years of being acquainted with him, I can’t recall seeing him flash with temper. He is the loyalists’ loyalist, the trooper you send out to defend the line when you need a dependable front man who won’t let his side down. When instinctive team players like this abandon the field of battle, you are in serious trouble.”
Polls all over the place
So, how might the fallout from the Healey drama impact on Makerfield, the most significant by-election in modern British history? Last week Team Burnham were riding high with polls showing 10 or 11% leads, partly driven by his local credentials, Reform plumbing the depths by selecting a particularly hapless local plumber candidate and Reform’s rivals, the further hard-right Restore Britain party led by Farage’s arch-enemy and former Reform MP, Rupert Lowe.
But alarm bells rang in the Burnham camp on Friday when a new poll suggested the lead had slipped to 5%. A rogue poll or a reaction to the saturation coverage of the Healey bombshell? It also showed Restore surging to 7% and third place well ahead of the Tories, LibDems and Greens. A figure which would be more than the difference between Labour and Reform.
But the Burnham team were cautiously boosted by a Sunday Times poll putting their man on 49%, twelve points ahead of Reform with Restore only on 5%. But as one veteran pollster put it: “I can’t recall a by-election with so many rapid variations so Andy Burnham can’t be complacent.”
Meanwhile, the Times confidently reports that the Mayor of Greater Manchester doesn’t intend to hang around and will launch a leadership challenge immediately on returning to parliament.
Two giant egos and a poisonous feud
A 3-page Friday Essay by the Mail’s Guy Adams had been headlined: ‘How giant egos, a poisonous feud and the many faces of Rupert Lowe are set to saddle Britain with Burnham’.
Followed up with the Mail on Sunday splashing with, ‘RESTORE ACTIVISTS AT ‘WHITE SUPREMACY SUMMIT’… on eve of vital by-election that anyone who plans to vote for Rupert Lowe’s divisive party is making a grave mistake’.
Inside, the Mail on Sunday quoted Lowe across a double page headline: ‘I don’t care if Burnham wins’… while star columnist Sarah Vine offered on a facing page: “As Lowe’s cynical campaign to undermine Farage threatens to put Andy Burnham in Number 10, if Kemi and Nigel put aside their egos they’d be the Oliva Newton-John and John Travolta of British politics… greased lightning!”
Monday’s Daily Mail followed through, branding Restore Britain ‘the new home for neo-Nazis’ and focusing on ‘Tommy Robinson’ declaring he wants to join the party. So how did Restore leader Rupert Lowe react on X? “Two Mail front pages in a row abusing Restore Britain in the most spectacular fashion. We’ve got the buggers on the run.”
As this column has been revealing for months, the Mail hierarchy is determined to force through a ‘Unite the Right’ election pact between the Tories and Reform with the next general election in mind. But so far without success and without factoring in the shock Restore surge that complicates the issue.
Reform UK strategists are only too aware that if the Restore Britain inroads into their Makerfield vote were to be replicated nationally in a general election, it could well KO Nigel Farage’s prime ministerial prospects. They are also acutely aware that Rupert Lowe is being actively backed over Farage as the ‘true leader’ of Britain’s right by the world’s richest man, dollar trillionaire Elon Musk.
Farage’s 6,800 word shift further right
The latter probably explaining Nigel Farage’s controversial Sunday debut on his new Substack account with a hardening of the party’s anti immigration rhetoric that moved closer to Restore even more extreme position.
In a 6,800-word essay mentioning white people more than 60 times, Farage wrote: “Thanks to the mass migration policies of Conservative and Labour governments, white Brits will become a minority in this country before the end of the century. Anti-whiteness is institutionalised in every aspect of public life.” He pledged that a Reform government would ban foreign nationals from welfare benefits, including social housing, and deport any who failed to find private rental accommodation within three months.
Starmer’s big breakfast time fightback
But a dramatic sign that Keir Starmer is determined to fight on came with Monday’s 8am Downing Street press conference in which he brought forward his wide ranging – but parent-popular – full social media ban plan for under 16s. Both a display of authority and, according to confidantes, his determination that the ban will be at the heart of his political legacy. It will almost certainly invoke a clash with President Trump and his opposition to any crackdown on the US Big Tech behemoths. In particular VP JD Vance who regards any legislative curb as an assault on free speech.
Starmer’s announcement came hours before he arrived at the G7 summit in France with speculation rife about his future and President Trump doubtless unimpressed by both the social media ban and the fallout from the Healey resignation and the UK’s defence budget firefight. It was arguably a sign of the PM’s reduced status that he wasn’t guaranteed a private audience with Trump.
Snubbed or not at G7 summit?
Right-wing papers and broadcasters were quick to report Starmer had been snubbed by Trump, especially when the president turned his back on him during the summit. But Number 10 were anxious to deny that, pointing out that the PM had sat next to Trump at the 2-hour initial dinner and next to him during the conference sessions and that they had spoken at length on Iran and Ukraine without the president raising the Healey resignation or the social media ban.
Starmer was also missing from a group photocall. But with good reason – he was being briefed on the dramatic warning shots fired by a Russian warship, the Admiral Grigorovich, against a 40ft civilian British yacht ‘Bright Future’ crewed by a retired couple in the Channel. The frigate has been involved in escorting Putin’s sanction-busting shadow fleet.
Putin’s warship opens fire in channel
Unsurprisingly, the alarming incident dominated many of Wednesday’s front pages. Samples: ‘VLAD FIRES ON BRIT OAPS IN CHANNEL (The Sun); ‘PUTIN OPENS FIRE IN THE CHANNEL’ (Daily Mail); ‘Russian warship fires shots in Channel’ (Telegraph); ‘Retired UK couple reveal scary clash in Channel with Russian warship’ (the i); ‘Russian warship opens fire in the Channel to warn off British yacht’ (The Guardian).
For the record, it was the first time a Russian warship had fired in the direction of a British vessel since 1904 during the Russo-Japanese War!
But the PM’s G7 ears would also undoubtedly have been burning with Tuesday’s damning resignation speeches in the Commons by John Healey and Al Carns. Current chief of the defence staff, Richard Knighton, was testifying along similarly critical lines to the Lords international relations and defence committee, chaired by George Robertson, the veteran Labour grandee, former NATO chief and author of the highly critical defence review condemning Starmer’s defence policy earlier this year.
Supporters of Healey said his speech would make them redouble their efforts to persuade him to join Carns in running to be PM against Burnham if he wins the by-election. Ex-Health Secretary Wes Streeting also chose Tuesday to make a major speech and TV appearances spelling out his determination to stand, while also contending that if Burnham wins Makerfield, the PM must set a timetable within days for his own exit.
Big Tech targets ‘weak’ Sir Keir
Meanwhile, sensing Starmer’s vulnerability, the social media companies stepped up their own war on Starmer’s ban plan, arguing it will push teenagers onto darker unregulated platforms. Inevitably, they will explore potential legal challenges before the legislation can come into effect next spring. Elon Musk chipped in with the absurd claim it proved the UK is now a ‘police state’.
Although the ban plan has received a broadly, if cautiously, positive response with the public, parliament and the media, it was awkward for the PM that strong criticism came from leading campaigner Ian Russell whose daughter Molly committed suicide. He accused Starmer of a “rushed political act” born out of self interest, predicted it wouldn’t work and that the PM had “betrayed a personal promise” he’d made him to crackdown effectively on the social media powerhouses. The criticism that Starmer had rushed things through in search of a “political legacy” was reflected on the front pages of Tuesday’s Mail and Telegraph.
An extraordinary week that begs the question whether Sir Keir will still be around or whether it will be up to his successor to see through his plan and face the US backlash.
Starmer’s Sunday announcement that armed British forces had intercepted and seized a Russian shadow fleet tanker can also be seen in the context of the PM seeking to counter the Healey repercussions and also impress the White House in the week of the by-election that could ultimately decide his fate. Ditto his tough talk at the G7 over extra action against Russia in support of Ukraine.
To date, Trump’s muted response to the Healey furore can be put down to the president’s preoccupation with finding an Iran ‘peace deal’ he can promote as a personal triumph and those grotesquely elaborate celebrations of his own 80th birthday. But next month’s NATO Summit which Trump will be attending threatens another tense encounter between POTUS and PM, assuming Starmer is still in office if not in power.
In a Wednesday morning G7 interview with Sky Political Editor Beth Rigby, Sir Keir repeated his determination to fight on but said he wanted to give Andy Burnham a ‘big role’ in the Cabinet. Not much of an olive branch, of course, because the only big role Burnham wants is the PM’s own.
So, the answer to whether Keir Starmer becomes a dead PM walking for weeks or months rests with the voters of Makerfield. Which is why Thursday’s by-election outcome in the early hours of Friday is being anticipated by world leaders and the global media on a scale unprecedented in British history.
