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Andy Burnham has said Labour MPs are privately urging him to challenge Keir Starmer to become prime minister.
In an intervention likely to fuel speculation that he is seeking a return to Westminster, Burnham accused Downing Street of creating a “climate of fear” and spreading “alienation and demoralisation” among MPs.
Speaking to the Daily Telegraph before the Labour conference this weekend, the Greater Manchester mayor said he was not “plotting to get back” and the leadership was “for other people in Westminster to make a decision about”.
It came a day after a separate interview with the New Statesman where Burnham said wholesale change was needed to see off an existential threat to the party.
The former New Labour minister and ex-MP for Leigh said he was not planning an immediate return to the House of Commons or seeking to cause trouble for the government before the conference.
But his interventions have been interpreted as a signal that he is mulling a challenge to Starmer in what would be his third run at the Labour leadership.
Asked about Burnham’s remarks on Thursday morning, Steve Reed, the housing secretary, said Starmer got used to people “taking potshots” at him during opposition before he “picked this party up off the floor and led us to a record-breaking election victory”.
Speaking to Sky News, Reed added that Burnham was doing a good job as mayor and was entitled to his view.
Asked by the Telegraph if MPs had urged him to run, Burnham said: “People have contacted me throughout the summer, yeah. I’m not going to say to you that that hasn’t happened but, as I say, it’s more a decision for those people than it is for me.”
He confirmed he still harboured the ambition to become prime minister, saying: “I stood twice to be leader of the Labour party. And I think that tells you, doesn’t it?”
He set out his thoughts on how to “turn the country around”, including with higher council tax on some homes in southern England and a 50p top rate of income tax.
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He said there was a “huge underpayment of tax that should now be corrected” on homes in London and the south-east because the rates were based on property valuations from 1991.
He also called for more public control of housing, energy, water and rail, backed proportional representation and signalled a willingness to work with the Liberal Democrats and Jeremy Corbyn.
Burnham said returning to “the old way of doing things in Westminster with minimal change” was an unattractive prospect and that “the threat we’re facing is increasingly an existential one”.
Asked whether he could rule out a leadership challenge against Starmer before the May local elections, Burnham said: “Life seems to be changing, and I don’t know what is the will of people in Westminster … I am at the prime minister’s disposal to help.”
Starmer has had a bruising few weeks in which two high-profile government departures and a sustained lag behind Reform UK in the polls sparked questions about his leadership.
But Burnham would face several obstacles were he to decide to mount a challenge. He would have to resign as mayor of Greater Manchester before contesting and winning a parliamentary byelection for a Commons seat.
He has thrown his weight behind the former Commons leader Lucy Powell in the race to become deputy leader after Angela Rayner’s resignation over her tax affairs.
On Wednesday, the Bridget Phillipson, the eduction secretary, rejected claims she was No 10’s choice, suggesting instead she had been the victim of sexist briefings.
Asked whether she would welcome Burnham into the Commons as a potential leadership rival to the prime minister, she told BBC Radio 5 Live: “Well, there isn’t a vacancy, so I’m not sure which job he’d be applying for. He’s got a big job on his hands there in Manchester.”
