Sir Keir Starmer is bracing for a contentious battle over Labour’s deputy leadership as potential contenders position themselves following Angela Rayner’s departure.

Dame Emily Thornberry, a prominent Labour MP, mentioned she is ‘considering’ a run for the deputy position while also offering a harsh critique of the Prime Minister’s inaugural year.

She acknowledged ‘things just don’t seem to be working’ and criticized the ‘mistakes’ made by Sir Keir, claiming the party’s leadership is ‘not listening’.

The PM and his wife, Victoria, joined the King and Queen at a church service in Balmoral on Sunday.

Sir Keir headed to Scotland after an urgent reshuffle of his government following Ms. Rayner’s exit as Deputy PM and housing secretary.

She also quit as Labour’s deputy leader on Friday, after her tearful admission that she didn’t pay enough tax on the purchase of her new flat.

This scenario likely leads to a fractious Labour deputy leadership election, coinciding with Sir Keir’s efforts to steer his administration back on course.

The PM also faces the challenge of Reform UK’s rising poll numbers, as Nigel Farage’s party gains momentum and Labour struggles with the Channel migrant issue.

Defence Secretary John Healey this morning revealed that Sir Keir is ready to move asylum seekers to former military barracks in a bid to ward off the threat posed by Mr Farage.

Downing Street this afternoon announced further reshuffle changes as the PM appointed some Labour MPs to junior Government roles who were only elected to the House of Commons last July.

Mr Healey confirmed the Government is looking at plans to move asylum seekers to military sites.

But the defence secretary insisted the PM would not look to remove Britain from the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) as part of efforts to halt Channel crossings.

He said his department is ‘looking at the potential use of military and non-military… sites for temporary accommodation for the people who come across on these small boats that may not have a right to be here or need to be processed rapidly’.

According to The Telegraph, asylum seekers in hotels will be moved into barracks on former military bases under plans to be unveiled within weeks.

It also reported that ministers are close to agreeing on a ‘one in, one out’ migrant returns deal with Germany, having already sealed one with France.

It came as the numbers crossing the Channel continued to soar, with an estimated 1,000 people arriving in the UK on small boats yesterday.

There have also been protests at hotels housing asylum seekers across the country this summer, amid public anger over Labour’s record on tackling the issue.

Mr Healey also revealed Sir Keir had instructed his reshuffled Cabinet to ‘go up a gear’ after a ‘really tough’ first year in power.

‘We’re starting to renew, and what Keir Starmer has done is put a new team in place and said to us all, “you’ve got to go up a gear to demonstrate that Government can deliver for people”,’ the defence secretary said.

Dame Emily, speaking to the BBC’s Sunday With Laura Kuenssberg show, revealed that she is considering a bid for the deputy leadership, after tearing into Sir Keir’s record.

Meanwhile, Greater Manchester mayor Andy Burnham threw his support behind two  former ministers who are allies of his, and demanded a ‘reset’ of Sir Keir’s ‘London-centric’ administration.

Mr Burnham is a long-time rival of the PM who is frequently touted as a replacement for Sir Keir should he make a return to Westminster.

Dame Emily said the PM’s first year in office had been a ‘mixed picture’ as she praised Sir Keir’s performance internationally, but suggested he was failing domestically.

‘It’s such a mixed picture, isn’t it. We’re doing so well internationally and our standing is so much higher; we’re back on the international scene,’ she said.

‘But domestically things just don’t seem to be working. There are things we’re doing which are fantastic, but nobody seems to know about it.

‘The highest wage growth, building some homes, actually investing in green energy. 

‘All of these sort of things are brilliant achievements, nobody seems to be hearing about that – they hear about the mistakes.’

Dame Emily, the chair of the House of Commons’ foreign affairs committee, warned Labour ‘can’t afford’ to keep making mistakes due to the threat of Nigel Farage’s Reform UK. 

‘We’ve gone from having a fantastic gift from the British public of a huge majority to now being at 20 per cent in the polls,’ she added.

‘And we will have in the next election the biggest fight of our lives coming, which is against Farage.

‘The last thing we want is to go from a position where it was thought we would be in for two terms, to [handing] our country over to Farage.’

Dame Emily accused the Government of ‘not listening to people of goodwill who want the party to succeed’.

‘I think we need to do more of that because I think the answers are out there, but I think we need to continue to listen and learn from the public,’ she added.

The Islington South and Finsbury MP revealed she was ‘thinking about’ a bid for Labour’s deputy leadership.

‘I’m thinking about it, it’s really a question of what I can bring to it,’ she said.

‘What’s important is what you bring; do you have the strengths, do you have the experience, can you actually make a difference? I’ve got to think about that.’

But Mr Burnham argued someone from his region should take on Labour’s deputy leadership from Ms Rayner to combat the ‘London centricity [sic]’ of the Government.

The Greater Manchester mayor tipped Louise Haigh, who quit as transport secretary in November over a fraud row, and Lucy Powell, who was sacked as Commons leader by Sir Keir on Friday, as possible candidates.

Both Ms Haigh and Ms Powell previously supported Mr Burnham in his unsuccessful bid to be Labour leader in 2015.

Mr Burnham told the BBC: ‘Obviously, I’m biased, but you know somebody from these parts… would be great.

‘Louise Haigh, possibly Lucy Powell, whom I think did a brilliant job in government.

‘I think that’s what it needs, you know, we need to hear the voice of the party, the voice of the members, and then the voice of our communities behind that, particularly in the north of England, to counter that London centricity.

‘And I just would say more broadly, I think it also needs to be a bit of a reset for the Government, you know, I wish the new Cabinet and the ministerial team well, and I’m here to support them and work with them.

‘But I do think, you know, there needs to be a reset of the way we’re doing things.

‘If the Government says it’s going to do something, it should just do it. It can’t be right that we’re still in negotiations about the Hillsborough law, for instance, that’s unfair, in my view, to the Hillsborough families.

‘You know, this is a moment to… take a bit of stock, reset, and then as one Labour team, come back stronger.’

Mr Healey said, together with the Home Office, he was ‘putting military planners into their border command and into their planning for the future’. 

Speaking to Sky News about potentially moving migrants to military sites, he added: ‘Those are decisions we haven’t taken yet, but it’s work we’re doing at the moment And we’re doing it jointly with the Home Office.

‘I’m looking really hard at it. I’m looking at it with the Home Office. I recognise that the loss of confidence of the public over recent years in Britain’s ability to control its borders needs to be satisfied.

‘We have to deal with this problem with the small boats.’

Sir Keir’s reshuffle was prompted by Ms Rayner departing as Deputy PM, housing secretary and Labour’s deputy leader.

Among his changes, Sir Keir switched Yvette Cooper from Home Secretary to Foreign Secretary and replaced her in the Home Office with Shabana Mahmood – alongside a clear-out of junior ministers in that department.

The scale of the challenge facing Ms Mahmood, the former justice secretary, in her new Home Office role was illustrated by another mass of arrivals across the Channel on Saturday – her first full day in the job. 

One government source said ‘nothing is off the table’ for Ms Mahmood as she assumes her new brief, which puts her in charge of borders and asylum policy.

She has previously signalled a willingness to look at human rights reform within domestic law.

A Labour insider told The Sunday Times that Ms Mahmood was likely to want to overhaul the ECHR.

They claimed she would be far more radical than her predecessor, Ms Cooper, and would ‘start with the unthinkable and work backwards’.

But Mr Healey this morning insisted Sir Keir and Ms Mahmood would not look to completely quit the ECHR, warning such a move would leave Britain in the company of countries like Russia and Belarus.

‘Keir Starmer has already said that we’re reviewing the interpretation of the convention,’ the defence secretary said.

‘But what he has said also is we won’t pull out because it underpins so many important, wider agreements.

‘And if we pulled out, that would mean we were the only nation in Nato not to be signed up to the convention. And it would put us in the club with Russia and Belarus.’ 

Mr Farage used Reform’s conference in Birmingham this weekend to pledge that his party would stop the boats within two weeks of passing new legislation if they win power.

He has vowed to quit the ECHR and deport 600,000 asylum seekers within five years of becoming PM.

Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch is expected to make a similar pledge to leave the ECHR at her party’s conference next month. 

As part of Sir Keir’s clear-out of the Home Office, ex-borders minister Angela Eagle and ex-policing minister Diana Johnson were shifted to other departments.

Ex-industry minister Sarah Jones is now policing minister, a brief she held in opposition, as part of Ms Mahmood’s new-look team along with Mike Tapp, the Dover and Deal MP from Labour’s 2024 intake, and Alex Norris.

Sir Keir said on Saturday: ‘The new ministers will drive forward our growth agenda with a relentless focus.

‘Phase two of this Government is about delivery and this is a Government that will renew Britain and deliver the change people voted for.’

Chief Secretary to the Prime Minister Darren Jones had earlier denied that the Government was in crisis.

He insisted Sir Keir now has the ‘strongest team’ in place around the Cabinet table following Ms Rayner’s departure.

He ruled out the prospect of an early general election amid opposition claims that the upheaval could open up splits within Labour and collapse the PM’s authority.

Speaking to broadcasters on Saturday, Mr Jones dismissed suggestions that the reshuffle could delay the PM’s self-described ‘phase two’ of Government by moving senior figures to unfamiliar briefs.

‘It’s not instability insofar as the outcomes that we’re delivering are the same,’ Mr Jones, who is also the newly appointed Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, told BBC Breakfast.

He rejected the idea Ms Cooper had been moved out of the Home Office because she was failing to control immigration, adding she would be ‘brilliant’ in her new role as Foreign Secretary.

But Kim Johnson, the Labour MP for Liverpool Riverside, said the reshuffle looked like ‘moving deckchairs on the Titanic’ and ‘creating a London elite’.

‘The Labour Party is a broad church [and] this is certainly not represented with this reshuffle,’ she said.