Lisa Nandy: Labour leadership speculation is ‘froth and nonsense’
Wes Streeting has resigned as health secretary, and declared that he would stand in a leadership contest. Meanwhile, Josh Simons stepped down as Makerfield MP to allow Andy Burnham the chance to return to Westminster. On Sky News this morning, Trevor Phillips asked Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy if Keir Starmer would be gone by summer. Nandy said the prime minister would not be stepping down, and if people want to challenge him, ‘there is a process for doing that.’ Nandy said most of the speculation about a leadership challenge has turned out to be ‘nonsense’, and Labour had to ‘get on with the job’. Phillips asked whether Starmer might stand down if such a challenge materialises. Nandy said it would be up to him whether he ‘wants to take that next fight’. She said Conservative MPs had told her that this kind of ‘introspection’ had got the country into a mess under the last government.
Lisa Nandy: Wes Streeting’s pitch to rejoin the EU ‘a bit odd’
In Wes Streeting’s first speech since resigning as health secretary, he said: ‘Britain’s future lies with Europe… back in the European Union’. Trevor Phillips asked Lisa Nandy if she agreed with his position. Nandy said the government had been taking a ‘more pragmatic approach’ in getting closer to the EU and ‘repairing some of the damage’ from the Brexit deal. The culture secretary argued that calling for a return to the EU is like telling people ‘life was fine in 2015’, and said Streeting would hear from people that that is not the case when he starts campaigning. Nandy claimed the focus has to be on raising living standards for people.
