Greater Manchester mayor Andy Burnham has declared his support for Sir Keir Starmer.
Mr Burnham, long seen as a potential leadership rival to the Prime Minister, also called for “stability” in the Labour Party as he spoke at a think-tank event in central London on Tuesday.
His comments come after he was blocked from standing in the upcoming Gorton and Denton by-election by the Labour Party’s ruling national executive committee.
Asked at the Resolution Foundation event on working-age families whether the Sir Keir has his full support, Mr Burnham said: “Yes, he has my support.
“The Government has my support and they had my support when I put myself forward for the by-election.”
He said he spoke to the Prime Minister about the Labour Party needing a “strong sense of a stronger team again”.
He was asked at the event whether he thought it was wrong for Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar to call for Sir Keir to resign, and whether he could rule himself out of any future leadership challenge.
He said: “What I am calling for very clearly today is for the unity to create the stability, to give the Government the platform, to focus on all of the things that I’m talking about today.
“I think we’ve got to get away from the kind of sense that everything is a challenge. I put myself forward but I was saying to, I spoke to the Prime Minister, spoke to the Government, we need to get that strong sense of a stronger team again than there has been in recent times and that, I think, is what needs to come from this.”
He added: “We need to sort of dial down all of this constant briefing.
“It’s seemingly a bit endless some of the anonymous briefings going around. I think we just need to focus on what’s in front of us.
“There’s a by-election in front of us, I’ve been playing my role in that by-election… that’s the issue in politics right in front of us – the politics of collectivism versus the politics of division
“My view is you’ve got to focus on stopping that now…. and everything else is noise in the background.”
Earlier, Mr Burnham hailed the benefits of public control, adding: “I believe it’s what we should be working towards together with the Government and also bring pace and focus to lowering the cost of other of life’s essentials.
“To do that requires stability and I make my own call for that today across the Labour Party.
“Of course stability comes from greater unity and that would be helped by a more inclusive way of running the party but recent events make that now feel possible.”
