Starmer pledges to offer more hope as he continues to resist calls to quit

“But that doesn’t mean we don’t need to respond. It doesn’t mean we don’t need to rebuild. It doesn’t mean that we don’t need to set out the path ahead,” he said.

“That’s what I’m going to do in the coming days.”

He said Labour needs to set out arguments about hope and the future, and appeal to young people, admitting that “the hope wasn’t there enough in the first two years of this government”.

Speaking during a visit to AFC Wimbledon in south London, he said: “I will be setting out those arguments, but more than anything setting out with clarity the values and convictions that drive me.”

Dozens of Labour backbenchers have publicly suggested Sir Keir should either quit or set a timetable for his departure.

Earlier, deputy Labour leader Lucy Powell said that unless the party can win back voters lost to Reform UK and the Greens, then Nigel Farage would take the keys to No 10 at the next general election.

She told BBC Radio 4’s Today that Sir Keir should stay in position: “Thinking that setting out some kind of timetable would put to bed the issues of leadership, I think is actually the wrong conclusion here.

“Because all that would do is fire the starting gun of a, quite honestly, very distracting and ongoing debate about leadership.”

The Prime Minister will seek to use a major speech on Monday and then the King’s Speech on Wednesday to attempt to reset his premiership in the aftermath of the electoral mauling.

Sir Keir has been caught by the rise of Reform UK on the right, with Mr Farage’s party making spectacular gains, and the Green Party on the left also making inroads in Labour’s urban strongholds.

In England, councils which had been Labour for generations in the North were lost, while the party’s grip on London has also been severely weakened.

Results on Saturday underlined the challenge facing Labour, with Reform taking control in Barnsley and a Green surge seeing Sir Keir’s party losing control in Lambeth for the first time in 20 years.

In Wales, having been in government with half the seats in the Senedd at the last election, the party was reduced to just nine of the 96 seats available in the newly enlarged legislature, with First Minister Baroness Eluned Morgan the highest profile casualty.

While many of Sir Keir’s critics have been those on the left of the party who were never his natural supporters, the scale of the defeats has prompted more moderate voices to demand change.

Clive Betts, the party’s joint longest-serving MP, said the Cabinet should make it clear to Sir Keir he has to go “in the not too distant future”.

He told BBC Radio 4’s Today: “I think there’s now a responsibility on the Cabinet to talk to Keir and to recognise, as they obviously are picking up on the doorstep, that this can’t carry on forever.

“There has to be a timetable. There has to be a way to actually bring in a new leader in a proper and constructive manner in the next few months.”

Health Secretary Wes Streeting, who has continued to attract speculation about his ambitions despite publicly denying plans for a leadership tilt, said the Prime Minister will “have my support” in setting out how the Government will move forward on Monday.

But facing questions from reporters late on Friday night as he attended the count for Redbridge Council, where Labour clung on to power, he declined to say whether he believed Sir Keir was the right person to lead the party into the next general election.

Former deputy leader Angela Rayner, widely viewed as a potential challenger for the leadership, has not yet commented on the results.

Nor has Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham, whose path back to Westminster has previously been blocked by Labour’s ruling national executive committee.

Ms Powell, a Manchester MP, said Mr Burnham was “very popular and he’s a great asset to the Labour Party” and “I want to see us using all of the talents that we have”.

But she added: “I don’t want to see a leadership challenge, that’s not how we operate in the Labour Party.”

In the aftermath of the elections:

– Sir Keir gave former prime minister Gordon Brown a role as special envoy on global finance and made Baroness Harriet Harman his adviser on women and girls.

– Plaid Cymru’s Rhun ap Iorwerth said he intends to form a minority government in the Senedd.

– Scottish First Minister John Swinney said his SNP will engage with other parties to ensure Reform, which came joint second, is “locked out” of government at Holyrood.

– He said the prospect of Mr Farage becoming prime minister in Downing Street showed “the need for independence is so urgent”.

– After 131 of 136 English councils had declared results, Labour had a net loss of 34 authorities and 1,113 seats.

– Reform had gained 14 councils and 1,318 seats.

– The Green Party had gained control of four councils and put on 331 councillors.

– The Liberal Democrats had gained three councils and 142 seats while the Tories had a net loss of eight authorities and 428 councillors.