preparing to launch a leadership challenge<\/a> on Thursday if he and his allies can secure the support of enough MPs to trigger a contest.<\/p>\nHis move to force a race has sparked a frantic scramble on the left of Labour to find a candidate to oppose him, with Ed Miliband and Rayner both possible contenders, while Andy Burnham is unable to run from outside parliament.<\/p>\n
Rayner suggested she could enter any leadership contest, should one be triggered by Streeting on Thursday, although sources have said she was not dead set on being the left\u2019s candidate.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ll play my part in doing everything we possibly can to deliver the change, because it\u2019s not a personal ambition, I know the difference it makes,\u201d she said when asked.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhatever role I can play, I will keep pushing and pushing hard because I want the people out there at the moment who are really struggling \u2026 to know that I\u2019m putting all my energy into fighting for them.\u201d<\/p>\n
Rayner did not rule out endorsing a soft left rival if they had a better chance of success in any contest, raising the prospect of potential candidates on her wing of the party agreeing who would represent them.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t think it\u2019s a case of each person for themselves, but I do think it\u2019s a case of people seeing how they can pull the party together and have the vision to take us forward. You have to play your role as part of a team,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
But Starmer\u2019s former deputy ruled out launching a coup herself. \u201cI\u2019ve made it clear that I wasn\u2019t going to trigger the prime minister \u2013 and that I want to see change. I want to see actions, not just words.\u201d<\/p>\n
Rayner declined to say whether Starmer should fight any leadership challenge, saying that was a matter for the prime minister. When pressed on whether he should step aside, she said: \u201cKeir will have to reflect on that.\u201d<\/p>\n
She added: \u201cI\u2019ve said to Keir this is a really significant moment for our party and the country \u2026 The pace of change hasn\u2019t been enough for voters to see, and also mistakes have really blown us off course and made voters doubt us.\u201d<\/p>\n
Keir Starmer faces another day of questions over his future as Wes Streeting prepare to launch a challenge for the leadership. Photograph: James Manning\/PA<\/p>\n
Streeting has been organising an attempt to oust Starmer for days since Labour\u2019s disastrous election results, which Rayner said had left many MPs \u2013 including herself \u2013 \u201cheartbroken\u201d at losing longstanding councillors.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhatever Wes is doing, he has to justify his actions,\u201d she said. \u201cI do understand my colleagues and why they\u2019re they\u2019re angry and upset \u2026 I do understand why we\u2019re having this conversation now, but we need to get through that as quickly as possible.\u201d<\/p>\n
Rayner again stressed that Burnham should not have been prevented from re-entering parliament.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf somebody wants to come and help, and be part of the future that we can deliver, then absolutely we shouldn\u2019t be blocking people \u2026 We cannot afford to be factional about this. We cannot afford to have egos,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
But when asked, she said it would not be appropriate for her to ask Labour MPs in the north-west to stand down from their seats so that he could run.<\/p>\n
Rayner\u2019s last eight months have been overshadowed by the HMRC investigation, which was initiated after it emerged she had underpaid stamp duty on a Hove flat that she bought when her son\u2019s trust bought her out of the family home.<\/p>\n
\u201cI felt that voters were left with the impression that I somehow tried to avoid \u2013 or worse had been reckless or careless \u2013 in my actions. Whereas now hopefully people can see that actually it\u2019s a really complex area of law,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
But she acknowledged that some people would still feel uncomfortable about a former housing secretary paying the standard rate of stamp duty, when HMRC said she should pay the higher one.<\/p>\n
\u201cYeah, I understand that, but this is a very complex area of tax. It\u2019s ambiguous and I did get advice at the time. Therefore I felt like I\u2019d done everything I could to ensure that I complied,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
However, she says the investigation had \u201cclipped my wings\u201d because it made people feel she wasn\u2019t \u201con their side\u201d. She added: \u201cThat hurt the most, yeah, because that\u2019s what I\u2019ve always fought for.\u201d<\/p>\n
Rayner consulted two leading tax lawyers on her affairs and they reached two different conclusions. One advised her she would have a \u201crealistic chance\u201d of successfully appealing against HMRC\u2019s decision but that it could take years. She accepted the decision and paid the tax.<\/p>\n
\u201cPoliticians should be held up to high standards and that\u2019s why, when there was a question mark, I resigned from government. I think that was the right thing to do,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was just the constant digging and then headlines of \u2018I avoided tax\u2019, \u2018I didn\u2019t want to pay the tax\u2019, or that \u2018I\u2019d taken money from my son\u2019, all these insinuations, all these things that were not accurate.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m relieved because the one thing that has really upset me is that the public thought in some way that I had either been careless, or that I\u2019d tried to avoid paying tax, when both of those things are clearly not right.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Angela Rayner has been cleared by HMRC of deliberate wrongdoing or carelessness over her tax affairs, the Guardian…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":583069,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[49,50,51,47,52,48],"class_list":["post-583068","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/583068","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=583068"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/583068\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/583069"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=583068"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=583068"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=583068"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}