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She’s a millionaire, apparently. That’s the latest claim from a Fleet Street endlessly fascinated by Angela Rayner, former deputy prime minister and, they say, possibly our next prime minister. Rayner’s allies are keen to rebuff the latest claims: that she is building a million-pound war chest to challenge Keir Starmer. The truth is more prosaic. Rayner recently accepted £50,000 from a local fridge company to pay the wages of her staff.
The money from Refrigeration House Limited, an Oldham-based family business set up in 1965, would, even if it were repeated in monthly installments, amount to £600,000 a year. Paul Jordon, the Mancunian who runs the firm, says: “As a local businessman, I know Angela’s track record and we need more people in politics with her background and real world experience. I’m happy to support her office because she has an important and ongoing contribution to public life.”
Indeed, Rayner’s departure from government has done nothing to calm the feverish speculation about what she is up to. And this week her decision to wade into the Mandelson affair has only stirred further the whirlwind of allegations about plotting and premeditation.
There were claims and counterclaims about Rayner’s motivation when she publicly broke with the Prime Minister over his response to the Tories’ humble address on the Mandelson papers. Rayner called for the independent Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC) to be able to scrutinise the files for national security purposes, rather than the Cabinet Secretary. The government came to a compromise and Rayner’s proposal went through on the nod at the end of an exhausting day of debate.
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Some of the papers feverishly claimed Rayner was “twisting the knife” into Starmer as some sort of delayed revenge for her fall from government in September. Others went for the opposite explanation: that she was saving the government by intervening, helping it to limp on for a few more months (one Rayner-supporting MP speculated to me that she wants Starmer to survive longer so she can fight a future leadership contest after her tax case with HMRC has been concluded).
I understand Rayner finds both interpretations of her behaviour borderline offensive because they assume her overriding motivation was a low political one. What she actually wanted was to get the files released in the smoothest way possible, without an internal Labour row, so that the shame of Mandelson can be washed away and victims of Epstein can receive justice.
But still accusations of scheming and subterfuge surround her.
Rayner had planned to be away for a lunch on Wednesday and was not expecting to spend time in the chamber. Her plans for the day only changed when it became clear to her, after assessing her own feelings and taking the mood of the Parliamentary Labour Party, that the government’s position on the release of documents was unsustainable. She was then, in the words of one ally, left “negotiating with the Chief Whip all day”. Rayner was joined in that effort by other leading Labour MPs such as Meg Hillier, the chair of the Treasury Select Committee.
Even at the close of the debate on Wednesday, some natural Rayner allies still seemed unsatisfied with the manuscript amendment she had negotiated. The minister at the despatch box, Chris Ward, faced tough questions from the Labour backbenches about the extent of the ISC’s oversight powers. Rayner’s role was less leading a rebellion than herding cats.
Since she left government, Rayner’s personal resolution has been to use her position as a popular and influential backbencher to fight for the issues she most cares about, and to keep the government to its manifesto commitments. So far, that has manifested in sharp, targeted interventions on employment rights and leasehold reforms.
But what next? As previously reported in the New Statesman, Rayner is also keeping a close eye on the forthcoming special educational needs and disability reforms, about which there is deep unease on the Labour benches. Rayner has a strong interest in the subject, both as the mother of a child with lifelong disabilities, and as a former shadow education secretary.
The ongoing outcry over student loan repayments – which the government refuses to do anything about – has also caught Rayner’s eye. But she remains discerning about the issues she wishes to intervene on lest she play into the tabloid caricature of a perpetual malcontent who is just “mouthing off”.
All this comes down to a question of authority and how she uses it. As a Rayner-supporting backbench MP put it to me after the events of Wednesday: “Keir has the power, obviously, because he’s the Prime Minister. But if you look at what happened in the chamber, Angela has the authority. We have a problem where Keir has power but no authority, and Angela has authority but no power.”
[Further reading: Tracker: Labour MPs who have criticised Starmer over the Mandelson affair]
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