Sir Keir Starmer has lavished praise on the ‘hugely talented’ Angela Rayner and said he hopes the former deputy prime minister will return to his Cabinet amid claims she is preparing a bid for No10.
The Prime Minister has used an interview to stress that ‘of course’ he misses Ms Rayner and that he was ‘really sad that we lost her’ after she was forced to quit over a tax scandal.
And amid claims the former deputy prime minister has turned down the Education Secretary’s job as she plots her next move, Sir Keir has now explicitly said he expects her to return to his Cabinet.
Allies of Ms Rayner say the Prime Minister is desperately trying to persuade his former deputy – who is popular with the Labour Left – to return to his top team in a bid to shore up his position.
Sir Keir’s aides are reported to have privately suggested she could be handed back her old job or even given the education brief currently held by Bridget Phillipson in a reshuffle next year.
It comes after claims emerged that allies of Health Secretary Wes Streeting are pressing Ms Rayner to sign up to a ‘joint ticket’ for the Labour leadership, with the promise of a return to the deputy prime minister role if she throws her support behind him.
However Ms Rayner has reportedly resisted all overtures and is instead preparing her own bid for No10 after the local elections in May, with an ally telling The Mail on Sunday: ‘She wants to be free to develop her own agenda from outside the Cabinet.’
Now Sir Keir has used an interview with The Observer to make clear he misses Ms Rayner and has claimed misogyny played a part in the level of criticism she has faced in recent months.
Sir Keir Starmer (pictured, right) has lavished praise on the ‘hugely talented’ Angela Rayner (pictured, left) and said he hopes the former deputy prime minister will return to his Cabinet
After describing Ms Rayner as ‘the best social mobility story this country has ever seen’, the Prime Minister was asked if he missed his former deputy. He replied: ‘Yes, of course I do. I was really sad that we lost her.
‘As I said to her at the time, she’s going to be a major voice in the Labour movement.’
Pressed on whether she would return to the Cabinet, just three months after being forced to resign, he replied: ‘Yes. She’s hugely talented.’
The former housing secretary was forced to quit in September after she admitted to not paying £40,000 of stamp duty on her new £800,000 seaside property in Hove, East Sussex.
As an outspoken voice on the Labour Left, there has long been speculation Ms Rayner could run for the Labour leadership, although she has previously said she ‘never’ wants the job.
The Prime Minister also said that he thinks both Ms Rayner and Chancellor Rachel Reeves have suffered from misogyny, adding: ‘All politicians get quite a lot of abuse these days but for women it’s always worse.’
Sir Keir also made clear that if he does face a leadership challenge he will fight it, saying he has ‘defied’ his detractors before ‘and that’s what I intend to do’.
He said: ‘When I took over the Labour party, everyone said to me, “you’re not going to be able to change the party”. We ignored that and carried on.
The Prime Minister has used an interview to stress that ‘of course’ he misses Ms Rayner and that he was ‘really sad that we lost her’ after she was forced to quit over a tax scandal
‘Then they said to me, “you’re not going to be able to win an election”. We got a landslide Labour victory.
‘Now, 17 months into a five-year Labour term, they say “you’re not able to change the country”. Every time we’ve been in this position, we’ve defied them. And that’s what I intend to do.’
However Barry Gardiner, a former shadow minister under Jeremy Corbyn, said a successor to Sir Keir should not be anointed by MPs as it’s up to the whole Labour Party to elect a leader.
The Labour MP said his colleagues are ‘deeply worried’ at the thought they may lose their seats and are now openly discussing ‘should we be changing the leader’.
He told LBC: ‘That is speculation that has been happening and it is being fuelled by other people who are putting themselves forwards to indicate they might be willing to take over the reins at No10.’
Mr Gardiner said he is afraid that MPs will ‘try to stitch this up’, adding: ‘I think that would be an extremely bad idea… that we just go to a coronation, that we simply have somebody who emerges.’
