Labour needs to be diverse and welcome different views if the party wants to govern the whole of the UK, according to deputy leader Angela Rayner.

Ms Rayner, who has taken on the role as shadow levelling up and housing secretary, said the party needs to be more than “a load of Keir Starmers” after 10 front bench MPs resigned their posts after going against the party’s policy and voting for a ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas conflict.

She told the i newspaper’s Labour’s Plan For Power Podcast: “We have to be diverse. You don’t just need a load of Angela Rayners – that would be awful. There’s only one.

“You can’t make a jigsaw if all the pieces are exactly the same. It has to have different bits to link up, and that’s the crucial bit for me.

“If we want to be a successful Labour government, we have to be diverse.”

She said the party’s leadership needed to challenge each other to reach the right decisions.

“We have to be challenging to each other, and people can have different opinions on what we should do,” she said.

“But equally we have to then settle on a position. I don’t agree with Keir every time me and Keir have hit a policy issue, but some I win, some I lose.

“We’re a political movement and we’re a party that wants to govern. So there is a balance.”

She also called for women to have a stronger voice in politics.

“You need someone to tap you on the shoulder sometimes and go, ‘Hey, it’s great that you spoke for 50 minutes in this meeting, but see that woman in the corner over there? She’s not spoken once, bring her into the conversation’,” she said.