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Angela Rayner’s tilt at the leadership is a reminder to Sir Keir Starmer that there is a lot for him to do on the domestic front. In her most critical intervention since leaving the cabinet last year, the former deputy prime minister said that “people feel the system isn’t working for them” and that, “if we don’t have an answer to that, the right-wing populists will offer theirs”. On both accounts, she is right. It’s also true that “the very survival of the Labour Party is at stake”, and that “we’re running out of time”. Sir Keir is, however, entitled to feel that the reminder was both unnecessary and unhelpful. He is acutely aware of the problem of the cost of living — and indeed one of his arguments against Kemi Badenoch and Nigel Farage is that they supported a military action that put up the price of oil. And he must know that his government has not yet done enough to rescue the public services. As we report today, in advance of the Covid-19 inquiry being published, the NHS has not recovered from the pandemic and is emphatically not in a fit state of preparedness for another one.
The prime minister obviously feels that he has done well on the international stage in recent weeks, putting himself on the right side of public opinion against the initial strikes on Iran by the United States and Israel, and opposed to the escalation of the conflict since. Rayner’s criticisms of the government may have made the point that the British people are more interested in seeing improvements in their own lives. But her remarks were also a gift to the opposition, just as Badenoch looked to be short of ammunition of her own.
Only the night before, sensing she had misread the public mood, the Tory leader had rowed back on her previous criticism of the PM’s handling of the Iran conflict and defended the PM, calling Donald Trump’s repeated criticisms of Sir Keir “childish”. Now, she was able to claim Rayner had “fired the starting gun” on the race to oust the Labour leader. “I’ll tell him one thing, she and I both agree that this weak man should be replaced by a strong woman,” she said. Sometimes, it seems Labour just can’t help themselves.
Instead of offering constructive policy suggestions, Rayner’s speech was a vainglorious attempt to push the government in the wrong direction. Her main legacy as a minister is the unwieldy and burdensome Employment Rights Act, which had to be watered down after she had left office to remove its worst job-destroying measures. Her reputation for being anti-business and willing to take risks with the public finances is such that she recently joined a call with City investors in which she pledged the party would stick to its manifesto and not resort to a borrowing blitz to fund greater spending. “One gets the impression that she might be doing the rounds, in case she was to launch a bid for the leadership at some point,” one investor who was on the call was quoted as saying.
What’s more, she has now talked in general terms about how the party should be “brave”, as she has before, which is unspecific while managing to suggest that Sir Keir is too cautious. She praised Andy Burnham, the mayor of Greater Manchester, for his public transport policies, making common cause with another critic of the prime minister.
And she criticised Shabana Mahmood, the home secretary, for seeking to change the immigration rules suddenly, “pulling the rug” from under people who had expected to earn the right to permanent settlement after living in the UK for five years. “That would not just be bad policy, but a breach of trust,” Rayner said. She is right that immigration rights should not be changed at short notice, but Mahmood insists that the change is intended to prevent unjustified welfare claims. The problem with Rayner’s speech is that she seemed to be looking for an issue that would help her leadership ambitions rather than what is in the national interest. The country has not yet recovered from the ego-driven rapid turnover of prime ministers under the Conservatives; it does not need a Labour version of the same circus. Sir Keir has made his share of mistakes, and he and his party have suffered terrible unpopularity as a result. He needs to be more of a leader and less of a lawyer. But the idea that the solution is to change prime minister after just 20 months is deeply unconvincing. Especially if it means a shift towards a set of policies that is even more hostile to wealth creation.
The Independent
