Labour’s new elections coordinator, Ian Lavery, has said the party has plenty of leadership candidates to choose from if Jeremy Corbyn steps down before the next general election.

Lavery, who was appointed to the new role on Friday, jointly with another Labour MP, Andrew Gwynne, was asked on Pienaar’s Politics on BBC Radio 5 Live about leaked polling that showed the party testing the appeal of leftwing members of the shadow cabinet.

Labour sources have denied that the focus groups, in which voters were shown clips of the rising stars Rebecca Long-Bailey and Angela Rayner, had anything to do with “succession planning”.

Lavery said: “I think they are fantastic candidates. I think we have got lots of quality in the Labour party and it’s not just the two that’s been mentioned.” Asked if that meant there were plenty of potential leaders to choose from, he said: “There’s plenty of leaders to pick from if and when Jeremy decides, of his own volition, that it’s not for him at the election. That isn’t the case at this point in time.”

His wording appeared to hold out the possibility that Corbyn could yet decide to step down before 2020, which Labour has previously denied.

Lavery also talked about two forthcoming byelections, in Stoke-on-Trent and Copeland, Cumbria, both taking place next week, and appeared to play down the significance of Labour losing either.

“We obviously want to win, that goes without saying; but if there’s any hiccups in the next couple of weeks, then we would need to then look forward to the shire council elections, the different local elections, the mayoralty elections come May as well,” he said.

Labour denies leaked poll is linked to search for Corbyn's successor Read more

Labour has been rocked by internal division over the Brexit vote in the Commons, in which 52 MPs rebelled against Corbyn’s three-line whip and refused to back legislation authorising the government to trigger article 50, the formal divorce process from the EU.

Corbyn let the frontbenchers who voted against the whip off with a formal warning, including three who work in the whips’ office and were meant to persuade colleagues to toe the party line.

A Labour source said the polling, which was leaked to the Sunday Times, had nothing to do with trying out potential successors to Corbyn. “In common with all political parties, Labour conducts polling to get a clearer picture of views in different parts of the country. Polling of northern voters was about how best to get Labour’s message across in the north and has nothing at all to do with ‘succession planning’.” The source added that similar exercises would be carried out in other parts of the UK.

Earlier, Labour’s deputy leader, Tom Watson, had dismissed the idea of a fresh leadership challenge. When asked about a recent YouGov poll that suggested Corbyn’s favourability ratings were weak, he said: “This is not the time for a leadership election. He got a second mandate from our members last year, he is now the established leader of the Labour party.

“It is his duty to lead the official opposition through a period of unprecedented economic uncertainty and he will be tested. He has to explain those and he has to improve on them and he’s well aware of that. I do talk about the issues that I think Labour needs to address if we are going to narrow that poll gap.”

Voters appear to have been sceptical about Corbyn’s appeal in the leaked focus group results. The group, organised by Labour’s pollster, BMG Research, found Corbyn to be “boring”, said he appeared “fed up” and that he “looks like a scruffy schoolkid”.

The Labour source refused to comment on suggestions that the polling also pointed to the party being reduced to 198 seats to the Tories’ 361 if a general election were held in the coming months.