9 May 2026

Is Wes Streeting safer than we thought?

The Health Secretary will hope Labour holding Redbridge Council will put an end to speculation he could lose his seat

There were few winners in the Labour Party after Thursday’s elections. Even hope of a halo effect in Greater Manchester, thanks to Andy Burnham’s personal popularity in the area, was dashed as the Greens swallowed the inner city while Reform mopped up the outer boroughs. Likewise, Labour lost control of Tameside council, Angela Rayner’s back yard.

But Wes Streeting, the Health Secretary, is feeling chipper following declarations on Redbridge Council, which takes in his constituency of Ilford North.

At the 2024 general election, Streeting came within a hair’s breadth of losing his seat thanks to an independent challenger and his majority was slashed to just 528 votes.

Until polls closed in the local elections on Thursday it was widely predicted that Labour would have another tough night in Streeting’s patch and lose control of the council, which he sat on as deputy leader until he became an MP.

Yet as results came in on Friday evening it emerged that Labour had maintained fairly comfortable control of Redbridge, though it did lose 15 council seats. The representation of all opposition parties, including independents, remains in single digits.

The results show that Labour candidates were elected in each of the wards that make up Streeting’s Ilford North constituency. The party also had a clean sweep in two out of the four wards which Streeting lost at the last election to his independent challenger, Leanne Mohamad, and the leader of the local independents lost their seat to a Labour rival. Labour also won two council seats from the Conservatives within the boundaries of Ilford North.

Streeting’s allies say that this performance, even at a low ebb for Labour, shows he would comfortably win his seat at the next general election. The Health Secretary has said before that he regrets following orders from party bosses to campaign in marginal seats at the general election instead of fighting to keep Ilford North. “I should have followed my own gut instinct. I will not make that mistake again,” he told the New Statesman in December.

At the count on Friday, Streeting boasted that Labour had “bucked the national trend” on his patch despite “extremely bad results” across England, Scotland and Wales.

He said: “To all of those naysayers who claimed I couldn’t win Ilford North at the next general election, I will be standing in Ilford North at the next general election. This is my home, I’ve served this community for well over a decade, I’m not going anywhere. I’m in it to win it.”

Streeting is considered a leading contender to take over the leadership of the Labour Party were Keir Starmer to leave office, but the extreme marginality of his seat has been floated as a concern as he could be booted out of office at the next general election.

He will hope that Thursday’s results put an end to that speculation and provide evidence that his form of politics was better able to withstand Labour’s bad showing than his other potential rivals for the leadership, Andy Burnham and Rayner.

While Streeting has said publicly that he is not plotting to challenge the Prime Minister for the party leadership, and spoke in support of Keir Starmer at the count last night, it is understood that he is preparing for all eventualities – including a situation in which Starmer’s position becomes untenable.

[Further reading: All eyes on Angela Rayner]