Keir Starmer under siege: Meet potential contenders for UK PM post

Seen as the best communicator in the cabinet now, Streeting led the National Union of Students as a president, and served as a London councillor before being elected to Parliament for the first time in 2015.

Under his tenure as a health secretary, the UK saw a fall in NHS waiting lists.

He has been quite open about his leadership ambitions previously, and enjoys solid support from Labour MPs — his allies in the cabinet, being Business Secretary Peter Kyle and Science Secretary Liz Kendall.

However, his potential status as the ‘right-wing’ candidate is a factor that could make him unpopular among the members who tend to be to the left of the parliamentary party.

Andy Burnham

Polls suggest that Andy Burnham is the most popular Labour politician among voters and has strong backing from Labour MPs.

He had served as Greater Manchester mayor for almost a decade, and this has earned him the nickname “the King of the North”. During his tenure as an MP for Leigh between 2001 and 2017, Burnham held senior government roles, including in the culture and health departments. He twice stood to lead his party but lost to Ed Miliband in 2010, and to Jeremy Corbyn in 2015.

Though Burnham, too, has been quite vocal about his political ambition, one thing that blocks his way up to the top job — he is not currently an MP. However, his allies — most of whom belong to the left of the party —  hope that this can be rectified very soon.

Earlier this year, Burham applied to be Labour’s candidate in the Gorton and Denton by-election, only to be blocked by Starmer’s allies in the party’s ruling body.

Deputy Labour leader Lucy Powell and Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy are two of his allies and are expected to support him if he enters the race.

It will be his second stint in Westminster if Burnham returns to Parliament.

Angela Rayner

A deputy prime minister until last year, Angela Rayner is considered the most powerful woman in British politics.

A school dropout at 16,  Rayner worked as a care worker when she got involved with the trade union Unison, which became a major stepping stone into his political career.

In 2015, she was elected in the Greater Manchester constituency of Ashton-under-Lyne and rose quickly in Westminster, serving in Jeremy Corbyn’s shadow cabinet.

In government, she took over as housing secretary and was tasked with ramping up housebuilding and overhauling the renters’ rights.

In 2025, she resigned abruptly, admitting to evading some amount of taxes on the purchase of a new home.

Rayner, too, has strong support among Labour MPs. However, as a Greater Manchester politician on the left, much of her support base overlaps with that of Burnham

She is awaiting the result of the HMRC investigation into her home purchase, which could land her leadership campaign in trouble.

A few unexpected candidates

Apart from the above-mentioned prominent potential contenders for the post, some Labour MPs have discussed the possibility of the return of former leader and current Energy Secretary Ed Miliband.

Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood has also been mentioned as a possible challenger.

— with inputs from BBC