Senior Labour figures have downplayed the British public’s appetite for a general election to secure any major policy shifts under a new leader and have insisted the party is united behind Andy Burnham. 

Talking to Sky News on Sunday, housing secretary Steve Reed suggested Keir Starmer’s possible successor would introduce “changes in emphasis” but stick to the “fundamentals” such as Government rules on borrowing.

Deputy Labour leader Lucy Powell, speaking to Laura Kuenssberg on the BBC, said the newly-elected MP had built up “clear sense of purpose” and claimed British people want the party to “get on with the job” rather than turn to the country to decide. 

Powell in 2022 called for a general election after Liz Truss left office in 2022 after serving for only 44 days.

But speaking to Kuenssberg she denied that this may be hypocritical, and said the country “was in very particular times” after Truss’ exit. 

Polling paints a different picture

Reed told Trevor Phillips on Sky News Labour would stand “four square behind Andy to deliver the change this country voted for two years ago.”

“The public do not want a general election, and that’s not just my instinct. You can look at the polls that tell us the vast majority do not. They want us to get on with the job,” he told Sky News’s Sunday Morning With Trevor Phillips.

However, polling gives a mixed picture of public appetite for a general election, with a YouGov survey this week showing 48 per cent in favour of a national vote when Starmer’s successor is in place compared with 35 per cent against. 

Former cabinet secretary Lord Simon Case told Times Radio on Sunday that if Burnham’s policies are “radically different” to the Labour manifesto “he will have to call a general election, way before 2029.”