Healey's resignation is the nail in the coffin for Keir Starmer, writes James Hanson
Of all the resignations Keir Starmer has faced, Healey's principled stance is the most politically damaging of them all
In less than two years in office, Sir Keir Starmer has suffered many a damaging resignation from his top team.
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When Angela Rayner was forced to quit as Deputy Prime Minister and Housing Secretary last autumn over an unpaid tax bill, it cost the government one of its most authentic communicators.
When Morgan McSweeney departed as Starmer’s Chief of Staff over the Mandelson affair, the PM lost his closest political ally.
And when Wes Streeting flounced out of the Department of Health and Social Care last month, he launched an excoriating attack on Starmer’s leadership, or lack of it.
But of all the resignations since Labour came to power in July 2024, the loss of John Healey as Defence Secretary is the most politically damaging of all. Unlike the others, Healey’s departure isn’t about scandal, party management, or naked political ambition. It is about principle.
Such resignations are increasingly rare in Westminster, but when they come, they can prove devastating for the occupant of Number 10. I suspect Healey’s departure could well prove the final nail in Sir Keir Starmer’s political coffin.
The Prime Minister’s supporters like to claim that his leadership on the world stage is one of the reasons he should remain in post. And he has indeed talked a good game on NATO and Ukraine, showing much-needed symbolic support to Volodymyr Zelenskyy despite growing indifference from the Trump administration. But when it comes to national security, warm words are not enough.
The UK’s national security is under the greatest threat since the Cold War, arguably since the Second World War. As Starmer himself said only last week, “it is our intelligence assessment, and the assessment of other countries in NATO, that there could be an attack by Russia on NATO as soon as 2030.”
And yet despite that, both the Prime Minister and his Chancellor, Rachel Reeves, appear dangerously reluctant to prioritise defence spending over other areas.
As John Healey writes in his devastating resignation letter to the PM: “you have been unable, and the Treasury has been unwilling, to commit the resources that the nation needs to defend the country at this time of rising threats.”
The constant delays to the Defence Investment Plan and the apparent refusal to grant the armed forces even a fraction of what military chiefs believe is required are a complete dereliction of duty by Starmer and Reeves.
This is a government that is prepared to spend tens of billions more on welfare, including through the removal of the two-child benefit cap, and yet refuses to invest the necessary funds to protect our islands.
The first duty of any government is the defence of the realm. There will be no welfare state if we cannot ensure our national security. By taking such a principled stand, John Healey has done his country a patriotic service. He may also have ended Sir Keir Starmer’s premiership.
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Listen to James Hanson on LBC on weekends between 4 and 7am.
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