Sir Keir Starmer’s position as Prime Minister is already on the brink as leadership rivals are circling the Labour Party’s leader, it has been claimed.

Potential alternatives to Sir Keir would be the Health Secretary, Wes Streeting, on the “Blairite” wing, and the Deputy Prime Minister and Housing Secretary, Angela Rayner, on the “soft left” of the party, it has been suggested.

The PM could be in peril, it is thought, if things do not improve for his party in the new year, and Westminster observers will be keeping a close eye on the local elections, which are due to take place in England in May.

Former BBC political journalist Andrew Marr said during an edition of the New Statesman podcast earlier this week: “Well, all I would say is that I know of at least one, and, I think, two, covert one day leadership campaigns already being put together.

“And, I think, given where Labour are in the polls, it is possible to think ahead into next year. Imagine, by the early summer, imagine they’ve had really, really tough, bad local election results.

“They shouldn’t, because [of] the cycle, but imagine it’s really bad in terms of their raw numbers. Imagine Keir Starmer’s personal ratings or even lower than they are at the moment, and a mood of panic starts to spread among Labour MPs.

“They’re quite good at panicking, not as good as Tory MPs, but they can do it pretty effectively. I think that it’s not impossible that we see factional manoeuvring and, you know, personal ambitions starting to surface in the Cabinet around about then.”

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He added: “Now, if it’s a fight between, on the one hand, Morgan McSweeney running team Kier and anybody else, I would still back Morgan McSweeney to win. Nonetheless, I think there is the possibility of severe turbulence ahead.”

Mr Marr then detailed that there is a group of “very powerful” MPs with the “intellectual edge”, such as Mr Streeting and the Work and Pensions Secretary Liz Kendall.

There is also the “soft left”, which would probably gather under Angela Rayner. Louise Haigh, who resigned as Transport Secretary due to a fraud conviction, would “certainly be part of that instinct”, the commentator added.

Ipsos has found that 61 percent of the 1028 Britons aged over 18 it interviewed between November 27 and December 4 were “dissatisfied” with Starmer, marking his worst performance as Labour leader.

Electoral Calculus released a survey based on opinion polls carried out between November 27 and December 6 2024 on 8,303 people which predicts that Labour would be short of a majority by 41 seats at a General Election.