The Labour Party is a “dysfunctional” family, Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood said as she closed the party conference.
It comes after Sir Keir Starmer faced challenges from Andy Burnham, his backbenchers and Labour activists at this year’s conference in Liverpool.
“We are a family – a little dysfunctional at times, perhaps, but a family just the same,” Ms Mahmood told delegates.
The Greater Manchester Mayor claimed there is a “climate of fear” within the party, fuelling speculation he wishes to replace the Prime Minister.
However, on Monday Mr Burnham told a fringe event he believes Sir Keir is the right man for the job.
Mr Burnham had criticised the Labour leadership’s handling of dissent, attacking a situation where party members were “suspended for liking a tweet by another political party” or “a Member of Parliament loses the whip for trying to protect disability benefits”.
Health Secretary Wes Streeting said there had been “a bit too much of the fantasy football approach to politics in recent days and weeks”, when asked about Mr Burnham’s comments.
He told a fringe event hosted by Times Radio: “Politics is a team sport and the last thing our captain needs when he’s trying to steer the ship through stormy waters and heavy winds is people on his own crew trying to rock off the boat.”
Delegates also piled pressure on the Prime Minister at conference, calling on him to prevent “the commission of a genocide in Gaza”.
Activists passed an emergency motion which urged the Government to “ban trade with illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank” and apply “comprehensive sanctions”, including a full arms embargo on Israel.
Elsewhere, Labour MP Nadia Whittome said Labour had “alienated” its voter base as a result of plans to introduce digital IDs in a bid to crack down on migration.
The Nottingham East MP also argued that announcements such as the £5 billion Pride in Place programme were “not enough to meet the scale of the crisis that we’re in and they’re being drowned out by unpopular and unjust policies like the disability cuts”.
At the same fringe event, Labour MP John McDonnell urged the party’s top team in Westminster to “start listening” to backbenchers.
On the Government’s plans to place stricter conditions on indefinite leave to remain, the Hayes and Harlington MP said: “Please, please stop making these mistakes.”
