Ever since she quit as the UK’s deputy prime minister last year, Angela Rayner “hasn’t exactly behaved like one of us”, says a fellow Labour backbench MP.
“It’s not like you walk into the House of Commons members’ tearoom to find her sitting there having eggs on toast like the other backbenchers,” says the MP.
“She keeps apart. She prefers set pieces, speeches. Her interventions these days are very deliberate.”
Rayner’s public interventions over recent weeks have also become more pointed, fuelling speculation in Westminster that the flame-haired, fiery politician from Stockport near Manchester is planning a comeback, possibly even as prime minister.
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As Labour flounders in the polls in advance of crucial election campaigns kicking off across Britain this week, Rayner has recently been issuing warnings about Labour Party policy on everything from immigration clampdowns to housing and employment rights.
While many of her colleagues were toasting the shamrock at the Irish Embassy in Belgravia on St Patrick’s night, Rayner was 2.5km away giving a speech in a Westminster pub warning Keir Starmer’s government that it was “running out of time”.
“The very survival of the Labour Party is at stake,” she told a gathering of Labour left-wingers in the basement of Walker’s of Whitehall, the same pub where Starmer’s former chief of staff Morgan McSweeney held his leaving party after quitting Downing Street.
Rayner, who turned 46 last Saturday, is working on her own podcast series, Beyond the Bubble. With a ghostwriter, she also plans to release a memoir later this year – a sure sign of a politician eyeing a return to the limelight.
She is even giving speeches on the economy to BNP Paribas bankers and conferences of London estate agents.
So what next for the charismatic Rayner, probably the most scrutinised politician in Britain? Will she launch a tilt at the Labour leadership and, if so, when?
“She’s queen bee,” says a senior Labour Party figure who knows her well from England’s northwest.
“Ninety per cent of MPs sit back thinking ‘why am I not the prime minister?’ But Angela actually has a chance. So of course she wants it. But it isn’t that simple.”
Rayner was forced to quit last September as Starmer’s deputy when it emerged she may have inadvertently underpaid stamp duty on a £800,000 (€920,000) flat in Hove, beside Brighton.
The biggest obstacle to her comeback is that UK tax authorities have not yet issued a ruling on her case, leaving her in political limbo until it is cleared up.
“Until HMRC [the UK’s tax authority] tells her ‘here’s your bill’, it is hard to imagine her back in cabinet, let alone leading it,” says the senior Labour figure. A MP agrees the tax issue is crucial to her future and Rayner is marooned until it is resolved.
“There is definitely a space for Angela to be back in the cabinet and maybe even at the top of politics,” says the MP. “Labour needs her back. But you can’t just ignore that she might have an outstanding tax bill, and walk back in so soon. The timing has to be right.”
The morning local election results start rolling in, on May 8th, has long been seen as a moment of huge danger for Starmer’s stuttering leadership, with the possibility of a leadership challenge
May 7th is shaping up as a landmark date in the British political calendar, with devolved parliamentary elections in Scotland and Wales and local elections across much of England, including, crucially for Labour, in London.
Polls suggest the party will lose heavily to a reinvigorated Scottish National Party in the Holyrood vote for the fifth election in a row. Labour’s century-long dominance of Wales also seems set to end, with nationalists Plaid Cymru expected to lead the next government in Cardiff.
Meanwhile, Nigel Farage’s Reform UK and Zack Polanski’s Green Party, both riding high in the polls, are squeezing Labour’s base from the political right and left. The morning that results start rolling in, on May 8th, has long been seen as a moment of huge danger for Starmer’s stuttering leadership, with the possibility of a leadership challenge.
Wes Streeting, Labour’s right-leaning health secretary, was once seen as a prime potential replacement for Starmer. Yet his star has waned in recent months due to his perceived closeness to Peter Mandelson, whom Starmer controversially appointed as the UK’s ambassador to Washington, but then sacked due to his links to Jeffrey Epstein.
Streeting last week said he did not want to see Starmer challenged in May, effectively ruling himself out for now. Another potential challenger, Greater Manchester mayor Andy Burnham, is also blocked from entering the race because he is not a MP.
That leaves Rayner, a stalwart of the party’s soft left, as the obvious next contender. But as long as her tax issues rule her out, Starmer may get a reprieve.
One rumour doing the rounds in Westminster is that, as soon as he can after May 7th, Starmer will reshuffle his cabinet and attempt to carry on.
‘In today’s attention economy, we need politicians who can speak to different people, who can bring in people from different parts of the movement. It would be a morale boost just having her back’
— MP on Angela Rayner
A future reshuffle could create space for Rayner’s return – provided her tax issues are sorted out – in a senior role at some point. That could help to mend Starmer’s poor relationship with the party’s left.
“There is a strong strategic rationale for it. It would quell that part [the left] of the party,” says the senior Labour figure, pointing to the well-known story of Rayner’s impoverished upbringing, her struggles as a teenage mother, and her rise through Labour’s ranks.
A MP says Rayner’s natural charisma gives her an advantage in the media sphere over more stilted figures such as Starmer and other senior UK cabinet members, such as chancellor Rachel Reeves, who have struggled to sell Labour policies to a sceptical public.
“In today’s attention economy, we need politicians who can speak to different people, who can bring in people from different parts of the movement,” says the MP. “It would be a morale boost just having her back.”
Others in Labour are not so sure, however. Another senior party powerbroker warns that if Rayner was to make a return, and especially if she was to try to take the top job, she might struggle to withstand the incessant media scrutiny on her private life. Rayner is a favourite target of Britain’s famously vituperative tabloids.
“They will drop bombs on her,” says the powerbroker. “They’re already sniffing around for more ammunition.”
Rayner’s partner is former Labour MP Sam Tarry, a former acolyte of Jeremy Corbyn who was deselected in advance of the last election and fell out with Starmer’s leadership team. The party powerbroker says Rayner can expect her opponents to be rooting around her love life, checking for any influence from Tarry over her politics.
Rayner is also famously protective of the privacy of her teenage and grown-up children.
“A lot of people think, in the end, she doesn’t want the scrutiny on her family,” says the party powerbroker.
He says Rayner may well make a comeback, perhaps as a cabinet member or even as deputy prime minister once again. But he suggests her perceived inexperience on the global stage might rule her out as prime minister in an age of geopolitical turmoil.
“Everybody thinks we need a left candidate [if there is a leadership contest]. But Angela? Really? I think if a contest happens, horses will get traded – even with Keir while he is chained to the radiator by the soft left. Angela can still be a powerful king or queen maker.”
Rayner, meanwhile, has often spoken of being underestimated. It seems certain that, in some guise, she will soon be back at the top table of British politics.
