LABOUR should be more “unapologetic” about its agenda, former deputy premier Angela Rayner has said.

Speaking at a party fundraising event Ms Rayner, now the likely left candidate in any Labour leadership race following the blocking of Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham, said: “We’ve done a lot of really good things. But my diagnosis of what’s gone wrong is that people think we’ve got there through being pushed there, as opposed to people thinking that that’s what we stand for and believe. I think that we need to be unapologetically Labour.”

She was speaking as the row over Sir Keir Starmer’s decision to bar Mr Burnham from seeking the Labour nomination in the impending Gorton and Denton by-election rumbled on.

Over 50 back-bench MPs have signed a letter protesting against the decision as a gift to Reform and leaders of the “soft left” Tribune group have also objected.

Some Labour MPs believe that the undemocratic move has only hastened the likelihood of a challenge to Sir Keir in the near future while also condemning the party to defeat in the by-election.

“Realistically we are going to lose,” a senior government source has admitted.

The Muslim Vote campaign is calling on voters in the Manchester constituency to back the Greens, a call that could be influential in a seat where 30 per cent of the electorate identify as Muslim.

The other main challenger will be Reform, and party boss Nigel Farage has crowed that the anti-Burnham stitch-up has made his party’s job easier.  

He said that if “Burnham stood, our chances of winning would have been considerably reduced because he would have been the anti-Starmer candidate. Reform are now the anti-Starmer candidate.”

And Mr Burnham and Downing Street indulged in a war of words over whether the Manchester mayor had been warned he would be wasting his time seeking permission to stand — an allegation he strongly denied, but an indication the row will not abate soon.