Left-wing Labour backbencher Ian Lavery has said the Labour a party “risks dying with Keir Starmer” as the row over blocking Andy Burnham from standing as an MP continues.

Writing on Facebook, Lavery said: “The claim that blocking the Mayor of Greater Manchester from seeking selection in a parliamentary by‑election will prevent a “Westminster psychodrama” is, frankly, discombobulating. 

“Far from calming anything, it reveals a profound nervousness at the very top of the party.”

He goes on to say: “Preventing Andy Burnham from standing does not demonstrate strength or discipline; it signals weakness. It shows a leadership more concerned with shielding the most unpopular prime minister in modern British history than with even attempting to understand the scale of anger in the country.”

He criticised the “endless U-turns” made by the government, and said Labour was on “political life support”.

Eviscerating the top of the party, Lavery said: “If something doesn’t change, and change quickly, the consequences will be existential. 

“A party born with Keir Hardie risks dying with Keir Starmer.”

Keir Hardie was a founder of the Labour party and became its first leader in 1906.

Lavery is a regular critic of the prime minister.