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timetable for his departure to clear the way for the former Greater Manchester mayor.

A source with knowledge of the matter said Starmer was spending the weekend thinking about and discussing his position with his family but that an expected conversation with Burnham would clarify matters.

“Keir likes to think about things,” the source said.

Adding to the pressure on Starmer, US President Donald Trump predicted on his Truth Social platform that “Keir Starmer will resign as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom”.

Trump then repeated his view that Starmer had “failed badly” on cutting immigration and boosting North Sea oil output.

Starmer’s unpopularity was laid bare by Labour’s heavy losses in local elections in May, and polls of party members indicate Burnham would win a formal leadership contest.

Should Burnham take the helm, he would become Britain’s seventh prime minister in the past 10 years.

Sky News reported that it understood foreign minister Yvette Cooper had called on Starmer to stand down in a private conversation over the weekend. Her spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Her apparent appeal, alongside other ministers and dozens of lawmakers, increased the sense that it is now a case of when, rather than if, Starmer would step aside.

Starmer said only a few days ago that he would stand in any formal Labour leadership contest that sought to replace him.

While Starmer’s team believes his landslide national election win in 2024 gives him the mandate to stay in post until 2029, business minister Peter Kyle said the prime minister was reflecting on “the political challenges that he faces in this moment”.

Kyle said he had spoken to Starmer on Friday and had found a man who was questioning what “the country expected of him”. The conversation showed Starmer was in “very difficult circumstances”, the business minister said.

“So I’m not going to deny the political challenges that he faces in this moment, but what I’m also not going to do is say there is ever anything inevitable about the days ahead,” Kyle told LBC radio.