Wes Streeting is plotting to beat Angela Rayner to the punch in the race to topple Sir Keir Starmer as plotters set two premiership-defining dates for the Prime Minister, GB News has been told.

Labour plotters failed to takedown the Prime Minister following Anas Sarwar’s decision to demand new leadership in No10.

However, the Prime Minister’s struggles were not abated following the whole-hearted support of his Cabinet colleagues, with revelations about Lord Doyle’s peerage heaping further pressure on Sir Keir to come clean about his allies’ links to convicted paedophiles.

Labour insiders have now claimed Prime Minister’s two leadership rivals have their sights set on key electoral challenges that could imminently decide Sir Keir’s future.

“He appears to have headed this off but they said the same after last year’s party conference and a week or two later it was crisis stations again,” a Labour rebel with close links to rival camps told GB News.

“Angela is likely to favour a push post May, while Streeting allies are talking up after Gorton as he knows he needs to get in before Angela is cleared.”

A Labour MP added: “There are some big moments over the coming weeks. The first is at Prime Minister’s Questions. Then it’s Gorton.”

The Gorton & Denton by-election, which is being held on February 26, poses the first hurdle to Sir Keir’s future.

Having won the once-safe seat with a majority of 13,413, Labour would hope to retain the seat irrespective of any midterm blues.

However, ex-Health Minister Andrew Gwynne’s controversial departure and wider woes for Labour have ensured the contest is now being hotly contested with Reform UK and the Green Party.

Reform UK is looking to pull off its second by-election victory in the heart of the Red Wall since the 2024 General Election, adding to its knife-edge victory in Runcorn & Helsby last year.

Meanwhile, Zack Polanski is vying to paint the Green Party as Reform’s main rival at the ballot box, echoing a message already adopted by Labour, the Liberal Democrats, Scottish National Party and Plaid Cymru.

The bookies have the Green Party as new favourites to win the seat, edging out Reform UK following some favourable MRP polling.

Despite buoyant musings from Reform UK and the Green Party, an optimistic Labour insider said: “What we’re hearing on the doors is that our vote is holding up much better than many expected.”

But Mr Streeting is keeping his powder dry ahead of a potentially catastrophic by-election defeat.

The Ilford North MP continues to dismiss speculation about his leadership ambitions as “categorically untrue”.

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However, Mr Streeting first expressed his desire to enter No10 in 2018, claiming he would “probably” be Prime Minister in 2028.

The Health Secretary’s bid was dealt a blow earlier this month after a bombshell YouGov poll suggested Sir Keir garners more support from British voters than Mr Streeting.

Meanwhile, Sir Keir has been accused of being “too weak” to sack Mr Streeting after the Health Secretary released his private messages with Lord Mandelson on Tuesday.

The messages appeared to undermine the Prime Minister’s authority by warning Labour has “no growth strategy at all” and admitting he is “toast” in his Ilford North constituency.

Despite Mr Streeting’s denials about any political manoeuvrings, the Health Secretary is struggling to thwart a backlash from Cabinet colleagues.

However, GB News has been told Sir Keir has only been saved from receiving the humiliating title of becoming Labour’s shortest-serving Prime Minister due to plotters failing to get their ducks in order.

“MPs aren’t stupid,” a Labour source said. “They’ve been organising their coups on the train down to Westminster and that’s just not good enough to reassure MPs.”

A Labour MP added: “Anas has moved without any coordination. He’s jumped the gun.”

But the Scottish Labour leader appeared to save face by coming out against the Prime Minister, enabling him to drive a wedge between Holyrood and Westminster in a last-ditch attempt to shore up support ahead of May 7.

The decision will either ensure Mr Sarwar is seen as the first in the herd to move or as the potential saviour of Labour north of the border.

Mr Sarwar refused to endorse a challenger to Sir Keir, instead opting to call ex-Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner ahead of his bombshell announcement.

Meanwhile, Ms Rayner has been accused of creating an “AngelaForLeader” website, which briefly went live last month.

While the 45-year-old’s allies claimed the site was “fake”, Ms Rayner landed a blow on Sir Keir by demanding No10 go further in the publication of documents related to the appointment of Lord Mandelson as the UK’s Ambassador to the US.

Ms Rayner ultimately forced the Prime Minister to let Parliament’s intelligence and security committee decide what documents should be released after receiving the backing of backbench Labour MPs.

But the ex-Deputy Prime Minister faces a race against time to sort her council tax dispute with HMRC after she was forced to resign from the Cabinet for failing to pay the correct stamp duty on the purchase of a flat in Hove.

It has even been suggested that Ms Rayner is offering to help HMRC to speed up its investigation.

The Gorton & Denton by-election also risks undermining the Prime Minister’s message about being the best-placed candidate to defeat Reform UK.

“It’s better to have one enemy than fight on two fronts,” a Labour source said.

Defeat risks sparking utter confusion for anti-Reform tactical voters ahead of the next general election, with Sir Keir adopting a negative campaign message after GB News last year revealed the Prime Minister was struggling to cut through with attack lines centred on the National Health Service, workers’ rights and Ukraine.

However, this week’s poor showing from Labour rebels has not curtailed concerns about disgruntled backbenchers heaping pressure on No10 between now and the 2026 Local Elections.

“Many of us express our criticisms openly and to his face,” one Labour MP told GB News. “The others do it secretly and behind his back.”

GB News has been told that No10 has particular concerns about Labour’s chances in the upcoming Welsh Parliament Election.

Opinion polls suggest Plaid Cymru and Reform UK will supplant Labour in a two-horse race, mirroring the result of last October’s Caerphilly by-election.

However, voters will also go to the polls in Scotland and across 4,348 wards across England.

Reform UK leader Nigel Farage is increasingly confident about pulling off a second turquoise tsunami on May 7.

Speaking at a rally held in Birmingham earlier this week, Mr Farage said: “I now approach May 7 with a growing sense of optimism every single day, I really do.”

Disastrous electoral defeats have proved fatal to Prime Ministers in years gone by, including for Theresa May when the Tories finished fifth in the 2019 EU Parliament Election.

The writing was also on the wall for Boris Johnson when the Conservatives lost Tiverton & Honiton and Wakefield ahead of revelations about the appointment of his Deputy Chief Whip Chris Pincher.

However, Sir Keir issued a defiant response to speculation about his future during a visit to Hertfordshire this week.

The Prime Minister said: “I will never walk away from the mandate I was given to change this country.

“I will never walk away from the people that I’m charged with fighting for and I will never walk away from the country that I love.”

But wider Labour links between high-profile figures and convicted paedophiles have also damaged the Prime Minister’s authority.

Lord Mandelson’s friendship with Epstein, which the Prime Minister claims he was not given full knowledge of, ultimately prompted Morgan McSweeney’s resignation as No10 chief of staff.

Sir Keir deployed the same defence on the decision to nominate Lord Doyle for a peerage despite his friendship with Sean Morton.

Tim Allan, who resigned as the Prime Minister’s communications guru on Monday, yesterday confirmed key details of Sir Keir’s knowledge.

The damning revelations sparked a furious backlash from female Labour MPs, including Emma Lewell’s warning about the party looking like a “paedo protectors party”.

However, Sir Keir managed to swat away his first attack about Labour’s links to paedophiles in 2022.

Facing off against Sir Keir in a fiery Prime Minister’s Questions, Mr Johnson was decried and suffered a No10 resignation after accusing the former director of public prosecutions of failing to prosecute Jimmy Savile.

Looking back at the exchange, an ally of the former Prime Minister told GB News: “People were shocked and appalled by Boris’s line of attack on Starmer regarding Jimmy Saville.

“It was unfair, but so is politics and it is ageing better by the day.”

Sir Keir appeared rattled at Prime Minister’s Questions after Kemi Badenoch claimed the Labour Government was stuffed with “hypocrites and paedophile apologists”.

SNP leader Stephen Flynn went further, labelling Sir Keir as the “most gullible former director of public prosecutions in history.”

A former No10 insider is now confident that Sir Keir’s downfall could mirror Mr Johnson’s.

“Mandelson is partygate and the Doyle revelations are Starmer’s Chris Pincher moment,” they said.

The insider also warned that a “toxic” atmosphere will now grip Downing Street as Mr McSweeney and Mr Allan’s departures spark a clique mentality.

A briefing war has already rocked Antonia Romeo, who is expected to succeed Chris Wormald as the next Cabinet Secretary.

However, Sir Keir’s trump card for now appears to be warning MPs that changing leader risks triggering a snap general election that could consign Labour to the dustbin of British political history.