Allies of Sir Keir Starmer have said the Prime Minister is preparing to resign following Andy Burnham’s by-election victory in Makerfield.
A Labour MP loyal to the Prime Minister said he believed Sir Keir would announce his departure date as soon as Monday
A senior ally told The Sun: “I think there is just a 25 per cent chance [Sir Keir] fights on now.”
One Labour frontbencher added: “The PM just doesn’t have many friends left. It is about Keir Starmer. He is the problem. If Andy Burnham wasn’t challenging him someone else would be.”
Another senior figure told The Telegraph there had been “quite a bit of movement” among Cabinet ministers since the by-election result.
Calls for Sir Keir to go have been building since Labour took a beating in May’s local elections, with the party losing votes to Nigel Farage’s Reform UK and Zack Polanski’s Green Party.
The Prime Minister has repeatedly vowed to fight any leadership challenge, insisting he will not “walk away”.
But Mr Burnham’s by-election victory has prompted more backbenchers and Labour grandees to call for Sir Keir to stand down.
One ally of Mr Burnham said: “As Donald Trump would say, Keir Starmer doesn’t hold any cards here. He needs to set out a timetable to go.
“Andy offers a lifeline for all those seats that were going to get smashed out the park by Reform at the next election. It’s a matter of survival.”
A Labour MP usually considered to be loyal to the Prime Minister, said he believed Sir Keir would announce his departure date as soon as Monday.
He said: “There’s no one left. Literally people whose relatives work in No10 or people who are long term personal friends of Keir’s are pretty much the only ones left.”
They added that the Prime Minister’s support among MPs was now down to only a handful of “friends and family”, suggesting that standing in the way of Mr Burnham was like “trying to fight gravity.”
Meanwhile, one Labour peer, insisted Sir Keir would not “walk away” from Downing Street creating a vacuum but told the Observer the Prime Minister world “arrange a deliberate slow march in good order, as a matter of duty and dignity” on Monday.
Sir Keir and his backers in the Parliamentary Labour Party previously stressed the need to focus on the by-election for the Greater Manchester mayoralty triggered by Mr Burnham’s election.
That by-election is scheduled to take place on July 30, with Labour set to announce its candidate on June 26.
However, some Labour MPs think that Mr Burnham should go through a leadership contest so he get a mandate from the Parliamentary Labour Party (PLP).
A backbencher said: “If Burnham doesn’t win a leadership election this year and is installed in No10 he will lose a general election next year.”
Labour peer Charlie Falconer said Sir Keir has “absolutely no authority” because “everybody assumes” Mr Burnham is going to challenge him and win.
He said he would advise Sir Keir not to stand in a leadership contest and instead agree a handover, preferably before the parliamentary recess on July 16.
“There should be an agreed transition process in which Andy and Keir cooperate as to when the handover should take place,” he told the BBC.
