Eleven years ago, MPs reacted with astonishment as it was announced that they had voted against UK military action in Syria. It was the first time a prime minister had lost a vote on a matter of peace and war since 1782. Yet for Ed Miliband’s Labour, this was something of an accidental victory. Several shadow cabinet ministers told me afterwards that they had not expected David Cameron to rule out intervention (the motion referred only to potential military action and a second vote would have been required).
Ever since, the Syria affair has proved reliably combustible in Labour circles. For some, it was one of the high points of Miliband’s leadership (along with his crusade against phone hacking). For others – often from the party’s Blairite wing – it was further proof of why he should never have been elected.
Last week, this debate – normally conducted at late-night receptions – spilled onto the airwaves. Making his eleventh appearance on Question Time, Wes Streeting declared: “With hindsight, I think we can say, looking back on the events of 2013, that the hesitation of this country and the United States created a vacuum that Russia moved into and kept Assad in power for much longer.”
That was an implicit rebuke to Miliband, who delivered his own to the health secretary. It was “just wrong”, he told Times Radio, to claim that military action would have toppled Assad’s regime. “I believe then, and I do now, that one of the most important lessons of the Iraq war is we shouldn’t go into military intervention without a clear plan, including an exit strategy”.
Streeting, who is admired by No 10, sought to defuse the row – tweeting that he “did not criticise Ed” and that the energy secretary is “a good colleague” (the pair were also notably on opposing sides on assisted dying). But the exchange has served to exemplify wider tensions inside Labour.
Only a week before, Streeting had mocked Miliband during his comedy routine at the Spectator’s parliamentary awards, comparing Kemi Badenoch’s leadership to his (“Trashing her party’s own record, protests over power, talking about the members not the voters… Kemi, if you carry on like this, you will be energy secretary in ten years’ time.”)
To the fury of some inside Labour, Streeting also joked about recently-departed transport secretary Louise Haigh: “I genuinely want to see her back in the government soon and I’m going to phone her tomorrow on one of her numbers” (the comments prompted a formal complaint).
While Miliband and Haigh both hail from Labour’s soft left, Streeting is close to the party’s Blairite wing (though he distanced himself from Tony Blair over the Iraq war and class when I interviewed him earlier this year).
As the government seeks to define itself, such factional differences have taken on a heightened significance. For the soft left, state intervention and a social-democratic economic agenda are crucial to Labour’s success (“we want GB Energy to show that public ownership can work,” Miliband said when I interviewed him in September). Blairites, by contrast, put greater emphasis on public service reform and positive relations with business.
Starmer’s administration combines elements of both worldviews. He has embraced public ownership, stronger workers’ rights and tax and spend (and empowered Miliband, a friend and near-neighbour). But he has also put Blairites past and present at the heart of his administration and eschewed fights with business – wooing firms such as DP World and BlackRock.
For some, this is evidence that Starmer, like his hero Harold Wilson, can preside over competing tendencies. For others, it is proof of a government that lacks ideological definition.
That’s one reason – along with Starmer’s early unpopularity – why discussion in Labour circles has already turned to the next leadership contest. Back in October, I wrote that MPs envisaged a future in which Streeting and the soft left Angela Rayner faced off against each other (a scenario the latter has since publicly joked about).
Streeting’s allies reject accusations that he is “on manoeuvres” (noting that his recent interventions would hardly endear him to the Labour membership). But at a time of government strife, the health secretary has made clear he is his own man. In 2025, don’t be surprised if others follow his example.
This piece first appeared in the Morning Call newsletter; receive it every morning by subscribing on Substack here.
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