Keir Starmer has told his new shadow cabinet that he takes “full responsibility” for their election mauling after a botched reshuffle badly dented his authority.
The Labour leader told his top team there was no escaping the scale of the defeats which demonstrated “the size of the journey we have to go” in England.
Tensions were still bubbling internally after he stripped his deputy Angela Rayner of her party and campaign roles after the Hartlepool by-election.
She was given new roles at the 11th hour which he said would “take the fight to the Tories” amid furious accusations that he was trying to make her a scapegoat.
But Mr Starmer told the meeting: “To be clear, I take responsibility.
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"Nobody else. I lead the Labour Party and it is entirely on me.”
The party will now embark on a policy review to produce ideas to chime with voters after they lost a swathe of council seats across their traditional heartlands.
Labour officials are also studying electoral successes in Wales, Greater Manchester and West Yorkshire to see how they can better connect with the public.
The party’s new campaigns chief Shabana Mahmood admitted it must balance attracting former voters across the Midlands and the North without putting off supporters in cities.
She said: “It’s a difficult job. A lot of people are voting based on cultural disposition and cultural outlook, rather than just the economics of the programme.”
Many Labour MPs are downbeat about the prospect of Labour regaining ground amongst its former base, as a dramatic post-Brexit political realignment continues.
But Mr Starmer will attempt to get onto the front-foot on Tuesday by urging the Government to transform Britain’s economy with a central focus on good jobs.
Attacking the Government’s “piecemeal approach” to tackling inequalities between different parts of the country, he will claim that “making people and places scrap over funding pots won’t deliver the fundamental change our country needs.”
A Labour source said: “A failure to turn rhetoric into reality today will be one in the eye to the people and the places Boris Johnson has made such big promises to.
“It’s one thing talking a good game – but the time has now come to deliver.”
And Ms Rayner said she would “work tirelessly to reform our party” in order to “show that the Labour Party speaks for the working class”.
Former prime minister Gordon Brown said Labour had to change as society is facing “seismic changes”, such as widening social inequalities and nationalism.
“So, the Labour Party has got to change, we can never have the same policies at 1997 - they can’t be the same policies at 2019,” he said.
But Lord Peter Mandelson, former right-hand man to Tony Blair, is understood to be advising key members of Mr Starmer’s staff, prompting the anger of the Left.
Mr Starmer also sacked his shadow chancellor Anneliese Dodds and promoted close ally Rachel Reeves to the role in a move likely to further inflame tensions with the Left of the party.
Labour is preparing for another tricky Red Wall by-election this summer after ex-Coronation Street start Tracy Brabin won the newly created West Yorkshire mayoral race
