Jon Trickett, Labour’s campaigns and elections chair, has put the party on war footing and called for a snap general election following the apparent confirmation of Theresa May as the next prime minister.

With Andrea Leadsom withdrawing from the Tory leadership race, it is possible May could become PM by the end of the week.

And Labour has wasted no time, with Trickett saying it is “crucial” that the country has a “democratically elected Prime Minister” in the wake of the Brexit vote last month. “I am now putting the whole of the party on a General Election footing”, the senior Corbyn ally said.

This happens as a Theresa May article from 2007 came to light in which she said then-Prime Minister Gordon Brown had “no democratic mandate” and called for an early election herself.

Within minutes of the Tories’ 1922 committee appearing to confirm May as Tory leader, Trickett said that now time the country had the opportunity to elect a Labour government. Trickett was handed the role of election co-ordinator back in December, and his position was boosted to campaigns and elections chair in the recent reshuffle – with Corbyn sources saying the new title gave him greater control over the party’s election strategy.

“It now looks likely that we are about to have the coronation of a new Conservative Prime Minister,” Trickett said this afternoon.

“It is crucial, given the instability caused by the Brexit vote, that the country has a democratically elected Prime Minister. I am now putting the whole of the party on a General Election footing. It is time for the Labour Party to unite and ensure the millions of people in the country left behind by the Tories’ failed economic policies, have the opportunity to elect a Labour government”.

After Gordon Brown became Prime Minister in 2007, Theresa May wrote in an article for ConservativeHome that it was now time for a “early election”. She wrote:

“Whenever Gordon Brown chooses to call a general election, we will be ready for him. He has no democratic mandate. He has a reputation tainted by his failures after a decade in office. And he has no new ideas. An early election? Bring it on.”