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Keir Starmer is coming under intense pressure from a wide range of ministers and MPs to sack his chief of staff, Morgan McSweeney, after No 10 was accused of an extraordinary briefing operation against the health secretary, Wes Streeting.
Starmer is understood to have told MPs he will not sack his chief of staff and would not respond to several demands to ensure there were “consequences” for the briefers.
Astounded Labour MPs and ministers have blamed Starmer’s most senior aide for the fallout from an apparently orchestrated plan to fire a warning shot at putative leadership contenders including Streeting.
The health secretary, however, appeared emboldened by the row – with MPs praising a vigorous media performance and at least one Labour-backing union leaning towards backing him in the event of a vacancy.
Starmer has also moved to calm relations privately with Streeting, with overtures described by one source as “peace talks”.
After Starmer appeared to dodge a question on whether he had full confidence in his chief of staff at prime minister’s questions, Downing Street was forced to clarify its position. . “Morgan McSweeney, my team and I are absolutely focused on delivering for this country,” he had replied.
But urged directly by Labour MPs at the party’s backbench committee on Wednesday afternoon to sack the briefers, he said he would not. One MP present said the prime minister had “lost the dressing room”.
One Downing Street source said Starmer’s anger was still focused on Streeting, despite outwardly praising him. Another said he was frustrated by the health secretary arguing against the government’s approach to numerous issues including welfare, digital ID and Gaza.
Starmer was due to speak directly to the health secretary on Wednesday night for the first time since the row blew up. There was no indication that Streeting was going to resign, or that he would be sacked.
“Keir is clear that Wes is a highly effective minister, with great communication skills and he has his full backing,” said one No 10 source. “There has been no direct briefing against Wes from anyone.”
One strategist said the intention behind the briefings had not been to lay down a marker against Streeting in particular but to warn Labour MPs about the potentially fatal consequences of any leadership battle and to drive home the point that Starmer would fight hard for his position.
Streeting mounted a furious defence of his actions on morning shows, saying: “Whoever has been briefing this has been watching too much Celebrity Traitors. It’s the most unjustified attack against the faithfuls since Joe Marler was banished in the final.”
However, Labour MPs were left scratching their heads at the timing of Downing Street’s remarkable intervention, which the Guardian revealed on Tuesday night, with the focus switching to whether McSweeney could survive in post.
Many told the Guardian that attacks on Streeting – followed by the health secretary’s defiant appearance on breakfast television – had strengthened any future leadership campaign.
Even former allies of the prime minister’s chief of staff said they had changed their view of McSweeney. “Morgan will have to go. But it won’t save Keir,” one minister said.
The trade minister Chris Bryant told the BBC that aides should see politics as a “team sport”. He said: “It’s a bit daft if you have someone in the coach’s team hobbling one of the players before the match.”
In a further attempt to contain the row, Labour’s chair, Anna Turley, told ITV on Wednesday night that there would be an investigation into who had briefed against Streeting and that Starmer would take action against the culprit – something the PM had not committed to in his earlier meetings with MPs.
One cabinet minister said: “If it was an orchestrated campaign to shore up the PM, then it’s had the opposite effect; it’s spectacularly backfired. I don’t see how Morgan can survive when Keir has ended up in a weaker position than before.”
A cabinet source said: “Consensus is forming in cabinet he’ll have to go. I am devastated about it. I keep thinking there must be a bigger strategy that I’m not understanding. But I think it’s just that they just have to have an enemy. It’s become their achilles heel.”
Another cabinet source added: “I think the scales are falling from people’s eyes [about Morgan]. I don’t know if it’s worse that it’s done with Keir’s authorisation or that he is so checked out he does not know about it.”
One minister said they thought No 10’s paranoia was partly justified. “I 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.
“But I don’t 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.”
Allies of Streeting were among those who said McSweeney should be sacked after a dramatic 24 hours during which the health secretary firmly denied he was planning to launch a coup against the prime minister after the budget.
“Keir gave Wes his full backing at PMQs. It is categorically untrue that Wes has been preparing to challenge Keir,” one source close to the health secretary said.
Government insiders said there was now pressure on the prime minister over McSweeney from “many different quarters”. One source said: “Because Keir is so dependent on him for political advice, the guns are trained on him.”
Two No 10 sources said relations had also deteriorated between McSweeney and Darren Jones, the chief secretary to the prime minister, who is understood to be frustrated at how frequently the government’s attention is pulled on to scandals or briefing and counter-briefing.
MPs now believe that the home secretary, Shabana Mahmood, is McSweeney’s preferred successor to Starmer, and the two worked closely together when Mahmood was elections coordinator in Labour HQ. A source close to Mahmood said it was “nonsense” she was running any kind of leadership operation and said she was focused on major asylum changes to be announced shortly.
