Sir Keir Starmer has been rumoured to be succession planning after he and deputy Labour leader Angela Rayner returned questionnaires to Durham Police.
The Holborn and St Pancras MP promised to step down if he is found to have broke Covid rules when he drank beer indoors with colleagues on April 30th last year.
The Sunday Times has reported that Sir Keir is putting plans in place so that “our hard-earned gains” are not “squandered” in case he is forced to step down.
He reportedly told friends: “I will not let this party become a basket case again. I will not let our hard-won gains be squandered so we will need to be ready in the unlikely event that the worst comes to the worst.”
Commenting on the rumours, Lisa Nandy told Ridge on Sunday: “It’s absolute nonsense. No, he hasn’t, and I’ve spoken to him twice in the last couple of days about how we persuade this Government to lift a finger to avert a crisis on the railways and about how we can (reverse) the huge cuts to local government funding.”
She added: “No, I’m not worried that he’s been talking to anybody about succession planning because I know that he’s been talking to all of us about how we rid this country of a Government that has held us back for the last 12 years and finally start to deliver for working people.
“That is the conversation that we’re having in the Labour Party at the moment, our eyes are not on the Labour Party.
“For too long we spent time debating the Labour Party; we care about the country, that’s what we’re in politics for and that’s what we’re discussing.”
The Labour MP for Wigan added: “We’re completely focused about what is happening in the country at the moment because we live in it… Every bit of our energy is going into, not just being an opposition to this appalling Government but to being a genuine alternative.”
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