A row over defence funding does not usually end a premiership. This one came close — and it is not over. In a single week Labour lost a defence secretary and an armed forces minister, scrambled in a replacement, watched the leadership question crack open, and found a Manchester mayor, a Treasury chancellor, the resurgent right and a Russian sabotage trial all converging on a government already on the back foot.
The numbers that broke it
It begins with money the Treasury would not move. The government had asked George Robertson — former Labour defence secretary and NATO secretary general — to write a Defence Investment Plan identifying what the threat required. What came back collided with Rachel Reeves' fiscal rules: against a headline pledge of 3.5% of GDP by 2035, spending sat nearer 2.68%; the Ministry of Defence's roughly £18bn ask was met with a settlement of about £13.5bn that critics called 'Treasury trickery'. The chief of the defence staff, Richard Knighton, warned peers the armed forces would have to 'dial back' training and operations without more cash.
The walkout
Defence secretary John Healey resigned in a withering statement that aimed squarely at the chancellor — and, implicitly, at a prime minister who could not overrule her.
Unwilling to commit the resources the nation needs.
Within hours, armed forces minister Al Carns — Healey's parliamentary private secretary — quit too, having branded the Defence Investment Plan 'not fit for purpose'. Dan Jarvis was moved into the cabinet to replace Healey almost immediately, and promptly faced the poisoned chalice of explaining the shortfall to allies at a NATO defence ministers' meeting.
On the defensive
At the G7 in Évian-les-Bains, Starmer tried to hold the line — reaffirming the 3.5%-by-2035 commitment, announcing a £210m export-finance package for Ukraine and fresh sanctions on Russia's shadow fleet, a package Volodymyr Zelensky warmly welcomed. But the funding gap, the Trump-era pressure on NATO members and a looming summit deadline did not go away. At home, an announced ban on social media for under-16s was read less as policy than as a coherence problem — and his vow to face down any rival only underscored the danger.
I don't think we should have a challenge… If there is a challenge, I will fight. — Keir Starmer
Resignation watch
With two ministers gone, almost every other story bent toward one question: can he last? Wes Streeting, who had already resigned as health secretary, called on Starmer to set a timetable for his departure and signalled he was prepared to trigger a contest — while pointedly delaying until after the Makerfield by-election. He skewered the government for unveiling a £4.5bn walking-and-cycling scheme the day after the resignations as 'bad judgment'. Kemi Badenoch pressed an 'epic betrayal' line at PMQs, and Reform — now treated as Labour's main challenger — supplied the external pressure behind the panic.
What's circling: Makerfield
The hinge is a by-election. On 18 June, Greater Manchester mayor Andy Burnham stands for Labour against Reform UK's Robert Kenyon and Restore Britain's Rebecca Shepherd — a three-way that matters because Rupert Lowe's Restore is splitting the right-wing vote, easing Burnham's path. Farage has taken to calling him 'Open Borders Burnham'. Win it, and Burnham is back in Westminster with a platform; Starmer has dangled a cabinet job, calling him a 'huge asset', to head the challenge off — but allies say Burnham has no interest in serving under him. A Streeting–Burnham axis, with Streeting at the Treasury, has been floated.
The darker edges
Around the leadership drama, harder stories pressed in. The right fractured further as Lowe's Restore Britain — campaigning on the death penalty and mass deportations — polled around 7%. A street movement gathered under the 'Unite the Kingdom' and 'Raise the Colours' banners, with Tommy Robinson and Elon Musk addressing crowds and Farage lending support. The murder of student Henry Nowak in Southampton by Vickrum Digwa was seized on by Farage, who called for 'pure, cold rage', and folded into a wider migration narrative alongside the Belfast disorder that Hilary Benn called 'racist thuggery'.
And, almost lost in the noise: Andriy Lavrynovych was convicted of conspiring to commit arson on property connected to the prime minister — a Telegram-recruited plot directed by a Russian handler saved in his phone as 'El Money', which set fire to Starmer's Kentish Town home in May 2025. The former MI6 chief Richard Moore warned that Vladimir Putin is 'trying to intimidate' the UK through sabotage.
The crack
For all the leadership choreography, the origin is mundane. The week didn't begin with a plot. It began with a number the Treasury wouldn't move — and a prime minister who couldn't move it for them.
The mechanical spine — funding row to resignations to reshuffle — is solidly evidenced; the leadership manoeuvring is contested, briefed rather than confirmed.