Wes Streeting confirmed he will be standing, should a Labour leadership contest to replace Sir Keir Starmer be triggered.
He told reporters at a conference in central London, today, “We need a proper contest with the best candidates on the field, and I’ll be standing.”
Mr Streeting, who this week stood down as health secretary, insisted he did have enough support among MPs to trigger a contest.
He suggested his challenge would “lack legitimacy”, however, without rival Andy Burnham being given a chance to return to Parliament.
He told the Progress think tank conference: “Firstly, I do have support in the parliamentary party, but this week I also had a choice.
“We could have rushed straight into a leadership contest, knowing not all of the candidates would be on the pitch, that Andy Burnham was about to stand in a by-election, and that if we had rushed ahead without giving Andy a chance to stand, the new leader, whether it was me or anyone else, would lack the legitimacy, and so we would end up extending instability and uncertainty.
“That might have been the self-interested thing to do for candidates who are in Parliament presently, but it wasn’t in the party’s interest and wasn’t in the national interest.”
Elsewhere in his speech, Streeting put forward what appeared to be a sketch of his own proposals for the Labour leadership.
Moving closer to Europe was the first of three major policy ideas Mr Streeting floated.
He told the conference: “We need a new special relationship with the EU, because Britain’s future lies with Europe – and one day back in the European Union.”
He went on to suggest that he wanted to see the country rejoin the trade bloc in the future.
Mr Streeting also called for a debate over “what type of capitalism do we want” and how the UK creates and benefits from economic growth.
The Ilford North MP insisted Britain must not treat “the destruction of shared truth” as inevitable.
He went on to add that the country needed to look to the creation of the BBC amid the media innovations of the early 20th century as a blueprint for how to “take the pen back” from social media bosses in Silicon Valley.
Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham has also thrown his hat in the ring after Keir Starmer and the Labour party suffered disastrous results at the local elections last week.
The trouncing the party reieved led to nearly 100 Labour MPs calling for the Prime Minister to resign and five ministers, including Streeting, quitting government.
Andy Burnham was cleared to run for selection in the Makerfield by-election on Friday evening after MP Josh Simons stepped down to clear his path back to Westminster.
Mr Burnham has said he is prepared to “fight to the highest level”, as he and other senior Labour figures jostle to lead the party in the future.
Eze Chidiebere Paul
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