Burnham ally Louise Haigh to Starmer: Leave quietly or face a ‘brutal, unpleasant’ fight for Labour leadership

Andy Burnham’s right-hand woman Louise Haigh has told Keir Starmer he can either leave quietly or face a ‘cruel’ end.

At Mr Burnham’s victory rally in Makerfield, Ms Haigh said: ‘I hope the Prime Minister will spend the weekend reflecting on the outcome here and listening to voices from the Cabinet and Labor in Parliament.

‘Because I think all the evidence shows that this contest will be brutal, it will be unpleasant, and it is very unlikely that the Prime Minister will win in the end.’

Mr Burnham said his by-election victory gave him the mandate to ‘chart a new path for Britain’.

Privately, some Cabinet ministers were conveying the same message to the Prime Minister yesterday.

Sir Keir’s allies believe senior figures including Ed Miliband and Shabana Mahmood could stand down as soon as next week in a bid to oust him.

“The game is over,” one cabinet source said. ‘After this result Andy will be Prime Minister and very soon. I hope Keir doesn’t choose to suffer too much in the first place because the outcome will be the same.’

Another formerly loyal minister also described Sir Keir as a ‘dead man walking’.

The source told the Daily Mail: ‘It’s up to the Cabinet to take action now. ‘I don’t think he can survive a significant part of his cabinet resigning.’

He made the remarks at Andy Burnham’s victory rally in Ashton-in-Makerfield (pictured hugging Mr Burnham)

Sir Keir yesterday said a leadership race would throw the Government into ‘chaos’ but he would fight to keep his job.

In recent weeks the Prime Minister has quietly begun building a campaign team and has raised a war chest of more than £100,000.

In talks with MPs yesterday, he warned that a contest would ‘tear us apart’ and paralyze the Government, adding: ‘The worst thing we can do is take our foot off the gas.’

This weekend he will battle over how to deal with ministerial resignations that could occur if Mr Burnham rejects his request to set a timetable for his departure.

If he survives the walkout, Mr Burnham or former health secretary Wes Streeting may be forced to launch a formal challenge that could eventually trigger a contest that lasts all summer.

The Prime Minister will gather allies at Checkers this weekend to work on a strategy dubbed ‘Operation Save Keir’.

The two men at the center of the power struggle have not spoken since the byelection saga began.

But next week Mr Burnham will hold private talks in which he will tell the Prime Minister to set a timetable for departure and inform him that he already has the support of 200 Labor MPs, about half the size of the parliamentary party.

But Mr Burnham is desperate to avoid a contest that risks revealing he is not ready to take responsibility. The former Cabinet minister has battled two unsuccessful leadership campaigns in the past.

Allies of the new MP for Makerfield say Sir Keir would be happy to stay in No 10 until September, giving him time to assemble a team for the Government.

Mr Burnham began outlining some of his thinking for the first time yesterday: more state control of the water and power sector, an end to ‘trickle-down economics’, the ‘re-industrialisation’ of the North and a new focus on vocational training. But this is not a brilliant plan of the government.

Others on the left are more than happy to fill in the gaps. Campaign aides say Ed Miliband called so often they ‘never got him off the phone’.

Mr Miliband hopes to become Chancellor. His protégé, Miatta Fahnbulleh, is working on Mr. Burnham’s policy statement, and his former special adviser, Grace Pritchard, is now his spokeswoman.

A supporter of Mr Burnham said: ‘Keir’s campaign basically consists of 50 people in bunker 10 who know they will never get a government job again.’

Some Labor insiders believe his wife Victoria and life-hating teenage children in Number 10 could persuade him to step aside. Others think that his stubbornness and anger towards Mr. Burnham will cause him to continue fighting.

‘No one knows what will happen,’ said a cabinet minister.

‘But we must find a way to avoid falling into the chaos of the Tory years.’