Exclusive: I won’t resign to give Andy Burnham a shot at leadership, says Jewish Labour MP

The Warrington North MP told radio station LBC on Monday: “There are only so many people that you can sack for when you're a leader until it's at your door.

"And, you know, we didn't have local elections in Warrington last week, so there was a sort of more indirect misery, I suppose, for me than for some of my MPs and surrounding seats, where we went from Labour super majorities to one or two councillors in some of them.”

Reacting to the prime minister’s speech that morning, Nichols was unconvinced by Starmer’s attempt to reboot their party’s electoral fortunes and used a now-infamous meme of football manager Mick McCarthy to explain her reasoning.

“I watched his speech today. The speech of his life and fighting for his career, and the thing that was going to hopefully change everything.

"And the only thing I could think of is that interview. It was Mick McCarthy, the former Blackpool manager, and they go to him and they say 'You've lost 17 games, Mick. It can't go on like this, can it?'

"And he turns to him and goes 'it can'. And I just thought it's done, it's over. It's time for someone else to come in."

In January, the 35-year-old Jewish MP was highly critical of the decision to block the Greater Manchester mayor from standing in the Gorton and Denton by-election, describing it as “madness”. Labour then lost the seat to the Green Party’s Hannah Spencer.

Jewish members of the Parliamentary Labour Party are split when it comes to Starmer’s future.

Former minister Josh Simons said that Labour’s local election defeat amounted to “an unequivocal judgement that our actions do not meet the moment” and urged Starmer to “lead an orderly transition”.

According to LabourList, 93 MPs have called for Starmer to go, while 158 have said that he should remain.

His public backers include Georgia Gould, the schools minister, who posted on X on Tuesday: “The Prime Minister is right to focus on governing… We need political and economic stability and to get on with delivering the manifesto we were elected on.”

Frontbencher and Hendon MP David Pinto-Duschinsky also announced his support for Starmer, writing: “The country wants us to focus on delivering. That must be our overwhelming priority. We can’t allow leadership speculation to distract or divert us.”

Since Labour’s disappointing election results, Starmer has been rocked by a series of ministerial resignations – including Miatta Fahnbulleh, the faith minister and Jess Phillips, a home office minister – amid speculation about a potential leadership challenge from Wes Streeting, the health secretary.

However, the Times reported yesterday that former party leader, and current cabinet member Ed Miliband, is also considering a leadership challenge in order to prevent the health secretary from getting into No10 – something denied by Miliband.