Streeting’s Rejoin-EU Push Risks Dividing Weakened Labour Party

Wes Streeting at the Progress Conference 2026! in London, on May 16.

Photographer: Carlos Jasso/Bloomberg

Wes Streeting used his first public appearance since resigning as UK health secretary last week to make his pitch for a potential leadership bid and called for Britain to rejoin the European Union.

Streeting said that leaving the EU was “a catastrophic mistake,” and that the country’s future lies within Europe and “one day, back in the European Union,” in his first speech since quittingBloomberg Terminal Keir Starmer’s government on May 14.