In the long and colourful history of the Labour Party there have been two universally acknowledged suicide notes: the 1983 manifesto and the 2019 manifesto. One was so catastrophic that even senior Labour figures described it as “the longest suicide note in history.” The other arrived decades later to prove Labour still possessed both the stamina and ideological creativity required for electoral self-harm.
Now a third note has emerged.
Not a manifesto this time. Not a 300-page anthology of unaffordable promises written by men who think nationalisation is a personality trait. No, this one came in the form of a resignation letter from Wes Streeting.
And unlike the previous two, this one may actually bring Labour to power before destroying it.
British politics has always had a healthy supply of ambitious politicians pretending loyalty while quietly measuring the curtains in Number 10. But Streeting’s manoeuvring has all the subtlety of a man turning up to a wedding carrying divorce papers and a dating profile.
The resignation note, dripping with carefully calibrated positioning, was not merely a disagreement with leadership direction. It was an announcement to Westminster that the succession race has unofficially begun before the government has properly unpacked its boxes.
The public may not follow every internal Labour feud, but voters possess an extraordinary instinct for detecting political insincerity. They can smell disunity the way sharks smell blood. And nothing terrifies voters more than the suspicion that a governing party is already plotting against itself before it has even fixed the potholes.
Labour historically suffers from a unique condition among political parties: it cannot merely lose elections like normal parties. It must experience emotional collapse in public while conducting ideological warfare against itself using pamphlets, podcasts and passive-aggressive conference speeches.
The Conservatives stab each other quietly in oak-panelled rooms.
Labour conducts civil wars like amateur theatre productions.
Streeting’s resignation note matters because it exposes a growing truth inside Labour: the party may have won office, but it has not resolved what it actually is.
Is it still the party of organised labour?
Is it now a managerial technocratic party for metropolitan graduates?
Is it Blairism in recycled packaging?
Or is it merely an anti-Tory coalition temporarily sharing a building until the arguments resume?
Streeting represents a faction deeply impatient with Labour’s traditional sentimentalism. To his supporters he is modern, ruthless and electorally literate. To critics he sounds like a man who believes the welfare state should be run by an app and audited by Deloitte.
That tension has not disappeared simply because Labour won power. If anything, power intensifies it. Opposition allows ideological fantasy. Government demands choices. Choices create enemies.
And Labour governments are uniquely talented at producing enemies from their own side.
Harold Wilson spent years navigating internal mutiny.
James Callaghan was buried beneath union chaos.
Tony Blair survived endless guerrilla warfare from Brownites.
Jeremy Corbyn transformed Labour into a political re-enactment society for 1970s factional disputes.
Now Keir Starmer faces the same ancient curse: Labour’s greatest opposition often sits directly behind its own front bench.
The symbolism of Streeting’s resignation note is therefore devastating. It signals that the knives are already being sharpened while Labour is still in the honeymoon phase of government. The electorate expected administration; Westminster has resumed casting for the sequel.
Voters do not reward parties that appear obsessed with themselves. They especially do not reward politicians who seem permanently engaged in leadership psychodrama while ordinary people struggle with housing costs, stagnant wages and collapsing public services.
There is also something darkly comic about Labour’s timing. After years wandering the wilderness lecturing the country about Tory chaos, Conservative coups and revolving-door prime ministers, Labour now risks recreating the exact same atmosphere, only with better diversity statistics and more Guardian subscriptions.
Streeting’s allies will argue that leadership ambition is natural. Of course it is. Westminster without ambition would collapse into a support group with expenses claims. But timing matters in politics. There is a difference between preparing for the future and visibly circling the throne while the king is still speaking.
The resignation note therefore lands not merely as dissent but as omen.
A signal flare over a government barely out of infancy.
A reminder that Labour’s oldest enemy has never truly been the Conservatives.
It has always been Labour itself.
Centre for Nigeria Progress 