‘I’m not dead yet’: Angela Rayner prepares her return to the political frontline and warns Starmer’must do better’
Keir Starmer faces growing challenges from Labor, with Angela Rayner pushing for a return, insisting ‘I’m not dead yet’.
Internal squabbles threaten to escalate in China while the Prime Minister is away, as the party braces for humiliation in a possible by-election in Gorton and Denton.
Ms Rayner, who served as his deputy until she was forced to resign in September over unpaid tax, has been steadily raising her profile again.
Allies have been briefing that Wes Streeting, seen on the Labor right, will throw his hat in the ring for the leadership if he mounts a challenge.
Meanwhile, tensions are rising between Downing Street and Andy Burnham after Sir Keir’s move to prevent the mayor of Manchester from standing in the by-election.
Extraordinarily, Mr Burnham yesterday accused No10 of lying about whether he had been forewarned that the party’s ruling national executive committee would prevent him from standing.
Angela Rayner, who served as Keir Starmer’s deputy until she was forced to resign over unpaid tax in September, is steadily raising her profile again
Internal conflicts in China are in danger of increasing with the departure of the Prime Minister (last week’s picture)
Allies have been briefing that Wes Streeting, seen on the Labor right, will throw his hat in the ring for the leadership if he mounts a tough challenge.
According to the Times, Ms Rayner used a fundraiser last week to praise Labour’s achievements, including school breakfast clubs and the removal of the two-child allowance limit.
But he said: ‘We did some things wrong. We must be humble enough to admit when we make mistakes. ‘We must do better and we must do more.’
Ms Rayner insisted that she was ‘not dead yet’ and that confronting the Reformation would be ‘part of her journey’.
‘We face a looming threat about whether we will divide our country, whether we will surrender to ourselves, whether we will blame someone else. “Or whether we are making the collective, which is the aim of our movement and our party,” he said.
He added: ‘I’ll be part of this journey because I’m not giving up… I won’t be handing the keys to Number 10 to Nigel Farage.’
While both Reform and the Greens have vowed to go all out in the Gorton & Denton contest on February 26, some in Labor fear they could come third.
Speaking to reporters en route to China, the Prime Minister sought to downplay the alarm and urged leftists not to support the Greens.
“There is only one party that will stop reform and that is Labour,” the Prime Minister insisted.
He said the by-election would be about ‘Labour values’ and ‘covering the cost of living’ and would have ‘a strong record of what we have already done in this constituency’.
And he continued: ‘You can see from their candidates what kind of politics they will bring to this constituency, a divisive, poisonous divisive, divisive politics that divides people.
‘That’s not what the constituency is about, that’s not what Manchester is about, so it’s a direct fight between Labor and Reform and there’s only one party that can stop Reform politics in the election and that’s Labour.’
Tensions rise between Downing Street and Andy Burnham after Sir Keir leads move to block Manchester mayor from standing in by-election
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Asked if he wanted Mr Burnham to return as an MP when his term as mayor of Greater Manchester ends in 2028, Sir Keir said: ‘That’s Andy’s thing.’
He said they ‘worked really well together’ when they were both in Parliament a decade ago and hailed Mr Burnham as ‘one of our great devolution stories’.
Sir Keir also said his ‘first call’ after hearing about the attack on a synagogue in Manchester last year was to Mr Burnham and that they had recently worked together on the Northern Powerhouse Rail project.
‘As for what he wants to do when he’s no longer Mayor of Manchester, that’s up to Andy, but he’s doing a first-class job.’
