The question is no longer will Angela Rayner run – but can she win? I know the answer, writes DAN HODGES

Angela Rayner is no longer on ‘maneuvers’. Instead it is now aimed squarely at Keir Starmer and has begun to open with live tours.

‘Angela wants this,’ a minister said to me last night. ‘He decided it was time to take action.’

Until this week, many of Labour’s leadership candidates had been implicitly critical of the Prime Minister, but they were doing so under an implicit Westminster law. Wes Streeting complains about ‘people around Keir’

Following Labour’s defeat in the Gorton and Denton by-elections, Andy Burnham called for ‘a serious conversation about our political system and its pervasive culture’.

But on Tuesday, Rayner finally shut down the mixer. Addressing an audience of Mainstream members, a Soft Left membership group, he directly attacked Starmer for leading the party to destruction.

‘Labour’s survival is at stake,’ he warned.

‘As a party and a movement, we cannot hide; We cannot act in the face of regression. ‘We’re running out of time.’

He then launched an attack on the reform of Indefinite Leave to Remain, one of his key policies; In this reform, new immigrants were told retroactively that they would have to wait longer for settled status.

‘If we keep moving the goalposts we can’t talk about reaching an agreement,’ he said. ‘[It] It undermines our sense of fair play. This doesn’t belong to the British.’

What’s more, Rayner’s campaign launch — which is what this week’s event is all about — wasn’t just about fiery rhetoric. Starmer’s heir is now putting his money where his mouth is – or rather, he’s putting the money of wealthy Labor supporters where their mouth is.

His last entry in the list of members’ interests shows that Rayner has recently raised £70,000 for ‘staff’ and ‘campaigning’ activities. He also boosted his coffers with an estimated £100,000 from speaking engagements.

The former Deputy Prime Minister could be hired to speak ‘with candor and credibility on leadership under pressure’, according to his agency Chartwell Speakers. There are also reports that he signed a lucrative deal to publish his memoirs.

Some observers claimed the frenzied fundraiser was designed to help him write a big check to the Inland Revenue to cover the underpaid stamp duty on his luxury flat in Hove, East Sussex, which precipitated his resignation from office at the end of last year. But one of Rayner’s allies told me that he expects to be fully cleared by HMRC when the long-awaited investigation into his tax affairs is completed later this year.

Another of his colleagues believes there is a more obvious reason why he is strengthening his personal finances.

‘Why does he need so much money for ‘staff’?’ a minister asks. ‘He is no longer a minister and he is no longer Deputy Leader. There’s only one explanation for this: he’s building a war chest for his leadership campaign.’

This theory is supported by the fact that Rayner officially launched a new and rather glamorous company, ‘The Office of Angela Rayner Limited’, at the end of January.

DAN HODGES says Keir Starmer’s heir puts his money where his mouth is

Its supporters insist it was set up solely to manage revenue from extra-parliamentary activities. But such companies are routinely set up by MPs to manage leadership campaigns. Moreover, the Companies House filing clearly states that the firm’s aim is to ‘promote democratic and progressive values ​​through its political and policy work, including but not limited to supporting the Labor Party’.

The truth is that Rayner has been quietly working on his unofficial leadership campaign for months. At the beginning of the year I had lunch with a Labor MP who told me he had begun openly offering cabinet positions to trusted allies. Another told me he had spoken directly to Manchester mayor Andy Burnham about vying for the ‘dream ticket’ with the so-called King of the North.

Burnham’s allies deny any formal agreement has been reached. But they admit that he and Rayner have a semi-formal ‘non-aggression pact’. One of them said to me, ‘I don’t see a situation where Andy is going to run against Angela.’

So the question is no longer: Will Angela run? Now he’s running, can he win?

The answer to this is yes. Whatever the country thinks of him, Rayner is popular within the wider Labor movement, though not always among his parliamentary colleagues.

When I texted an MP to ask what they thought of the leadership bid, they replied: ‘I can’t write that, it’s too bad.’ Then they simply added: ‘I’m afraid it’s more ego than brain.’

But this is a minority view within the Labor Party – including a growing number of hardliners.

Since the party’s disastrous defeat to the Greens in Gorton and Denton, the views of Starmer’s shell-shocked troops have changed.

Their mood before was: ‘I want to get rid of him, but I’m not sure who the right candidate is.’ It’s become: ‘It doesn’t matter who the candidate is, they can’t do any worse.’ ‘He needs to go.’

Before Gorton and Denton, Labor MPs were prepared to tolerate a strategy focused on neutralizing Reform UK. They could no longer let a monkey do what Nigel Farage did: their sole focus was on far-left Zack Polanski and the Greens.

An MP has admitted Green Party leader Zack Polanksi is a ‘threat’ to Labor and added: ‘If we can’t see him off, it’s over for us.’

As one MP said: ‘Farage threatens our majority. But Polanski poses a threat to the entire party. This is existential. If we can’t send him off, it’s all over for us.’

This means that leadership candidates who seemed unlikable even a few months ago suddenly become interesting. Rayner. Burnham. Even Ed Miliband, who is by far the most popular MP among party members.

The view of the majority of Labor MPs is that the party should turn left. And if that means ceding the Red Wall or the middle ground to the Reform and Conservatives, so be it.

‘Whoever replaces Starmer must be able to strengthen our base,’ one minister told me. ‘We have three years: time to get swing voters back into the game. And if our core supporters abandon us, we’re finished.’

To me, this looks like panic disguised as strategy. But to be fair, Labor MPs should be alarmed.

Because Rayner is right. Starmer is leading his party to destruction.

Kemi Badenoch appears to have brought the Conservative Party back from the dead as reform floods Labour’s northern reaches under her watch.

Former supporters are fleeing. Unions are threatening to cut their historic support for Labor.

The business world again sees Labor as the killer of growth. The party’s activist base is in danger of disappearing in local elections. Scotland and Wales will become no-go zones for anyone carrying a red badge. So yes, Prime Minister Rayner’s future is no longer unthinkable. In fact, it may not even be in the cards anymore.

The fake war is over. The campaign to replace Starmer is officially underway. Angela Rayner fired the first shots, but they won’t be the last.