We will struggle to win majority says Hain

Former Cabinet Minister Peter Hain said Mr Miliband was “likely” to be in No 10 after the 2015 election, but it was “very hard” for the party to win a majority.

Meanwhile, a senior frontbencher acknowledged concerns about the rise of Nigel Farage’s Ukip, which made inroads into some of the Labour Party’s traditional support at last month’s elections.

Mr Hain, who is standing down at the next election, told Sky News that voters would realise that Mr Miliband was the right person to lead the country once he was in Downing Street “even if maybe they don’t see that at the moment”.

The Neath MP said: “Whether we’ll have a majority, which I will fight for along with every other Labour Party member, I don’t know because it’s very, very hard to win a majority now in British politics because we’re not in a two-party system, which we had for generations. We’re in a multi-party system.”

He added: “I think that Ed Miliband is well placed to lead the government in the future and I think people, when they see him as prime minister will actually realise that they’ve elected the right person, even if maybe they don’t see that at the moment.”

Concerns about the loss of Labour’s core support to Ukip were raised by shadow work and pensions secretary Rachel Reeves on the day of the Newark by-election, according to reports.

The Mail on Sunday reported that she told an event at Queen Mary University of London: “Our very raison d’etre will be threatened if the working people, who the Labour Party have got to be there for, and got to be a voice for, start to drift away because they don’t see us as the answer.”