Wes Streeting is locked in a standoff with Number 10 as allies claimed he had the numbers to launch a challenge but still hoped the prime minister would resign.
The health secretary had been widely expected to launch a leadership challenge on Thursday and has told supporters he has got the 81 MPs required to launch a formal contest. A source close to Streeting said he had the numbers but “things are shifting”.
But allies said he was still hoping not to have to move against the prime minister directly – and that more and more MPs were privately asking the prime minister to resign or set out a departure timetable.
Cabinet ministers told the Guardian it was untrue that they were planning to ask Starmer to go on Thursday afternoon, accusing Streeting’s supporters of trying to “brief resignations into existence”.
The Guardian revealed on Thursday that Angela Rayner, the former deputy prime minister, has been cleared by HMRC over her tax affairs. It gives Rayner the opportunity now to enter any leadership contest, which she has indicated she will do if Streeting challenges the prime minister.
MPs who are supportive of Starmer said that the health secretary’s supporters had been ringing MPs who had backed other candidates, asking them to lend their support to launch a challenge and suggesting incorrectly that they could then switch allegiances.
Darren Jones, the chief secretary to the prime minister, is said to have spent six hours talking to MPs considering backing Streeting, persuading several to withdraw their names from his list of backers.
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