The Cabinet should unite around a candidate to replace Sir Keir Starmer to take the fight to Nigel Farage and Reform UK, Labour MP Catherine West has said.
The MP, who has vowed to launch a leadership campaign unless Sir Keir is ousted by his Cabinet, also suggested Andy Burnham should be given a seat in the Lords.
Speaking in North London to the Press Association on Saturday night, the MP for Hornsey and Friern Barnet explained the “electoral crisis” Labour now faces and her plans for change.
Ms West said: “What I’d really like to see is not a leadership election, but for them to come together and appoint somebody amongst them who can lead us and give us a vision of how we’re going to defeat Nigel Farage and the right wing in the coming general election, which could be as soon as possible.”
For Ms West to challenge Sir Keir she would need the backing of 20% of Labour’s 403 MPs – a total of 81. She believes this is possible by calling on her colleagues on Monday.
The shake-up comes after the fallout of Labour’s election results, with many MPs calling for Sir Keir to go and the party losing control of several councils.
Mr Burnham, Labour Mayor of Manchester, has been widely touted as a candidate to face Sir Keir in a leadership challenge.
When asked if Ms West’s new decision to challenge Sir Keir is to prevent Mr Burnham getting a chance, she said “not at all”.
Ms West said: “Not at all. I think Andy should be part of the leadership team, and I would expect that any leader will want to appoint Andy, perhaps, to the House of Lords, because you could be a minister in the House of Lords, and he would make a fantastic contribution.
“Whether he can necessarily be the prime minister from the House of Lords, that would be very unusual.”
In a bid to salvage support, Sir Keir gave advisory roles to Labour grandees Gordon Brown and Baroness Harriet Harman on Saturday.
Despite this, Ms West said the Cabinet needs to lock “itself in a room tonight” and come up with a plan to save Labour.
She said: “What I’d like to see is the Cabinet locking itself in a room tonight and coming up with a plan to respond to what was the worst election result for the Labour Party that I can remember, and I’ve been in public life since 2001.
“This is what we would describe as an electoral emergency and sadly, the Cabinet have not come out strongly to lead us, to tell us what’s coming next.”
Ms West went on to say that from on Sunday and Monday she will be “doing some more challenging”.
She said: “I am doing some more challenging the current way that we’re approaching this crisis, and I hope that this will bring forward either a bit more fight on the current leader, or some leadership hopefuls, who will come forward and say, we’ve been challenged and this is our plan, to bring forward a change, and bring forward a change in the country, and bring forward renewed respect.
“I haven’t heard what we’re going to do differently or how that’s going to be different.
“And that’s why I want to try and shake up the party so that they can respond to what was an awful election result on Thursday.”
Ms West explained that she believes Reform UK’s success in the local elections is partly down to how they have taken over “a traditional role of the Labour Party”.
She said: “The only way of beating Reform is for the Labour Party to get itself organised, better funded, we need to do more fundraising, because Nigel Farage clearly has people who will just give him £5 million.
“We need to understand where that money came from, we need to understand how they operate.
“And also, we need to look at their methods of communication, because they clearly were able to communicate with working people, which is a traditional role of the Labour Party.”
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