Rayner: My job is to challenge Starmer
Deputy Labour leader Angela Rayner has warned her party needs to be more than “a load of Keir Starmers” if it wants to govern for the whole of Britain.
In an interview for the latest episode of i‘s podcast Labour’s Plan For Power, Ms Rayner said that the recent Gaza conflict showed that Labour had to allow “diversity of thought” at all levels, including its most senior.
The Shadow Levelling Up and Housing Secretary said that regular challenge heads was crucial for the party to become a successful government that reflected the country was it was.
“Look, we have to be diverse. Like, you don’t just need a load of Angela Rayners – that would be awful. There’s only one. But you don’t need a load of Keir Starmers,” she said.
“You can’t make a jigsaw if all the pieces are exactly the same. It has to have different bits to link up and that’s the crucial bit for me. If we want to be a successful Labour government, we have to be diverse.”
Ms Rayner strengthened her position in a Labour reshuffle in September, despite reports that Sir Keir had planned to demote her. She won a guarantee that she would be Deputy Prime Minister if the party won the election, alongside a new role as with responsibility for housing, levelling up and workers’ rights.
The MP for Ashton-under-Lyme previously fought off the Labour leader’s attempts to sack her in 2021, emerging instead with an unwieldy title boasting three different briefs.
Speaking to i‘s latest podcast series this week, Ms Rayner said that she doesn’t “see myself as the conscience of the Labour party”, but insisted it was her job to challenge the Labour leader to arrive at the best political decisions.
“We have to be challenging to each other, and people can have different opinions on what we should do,” she said.
“But equally we have to then settle on a position. I don’t agree with Keir every time me and Keir have hit a policy issue, but some I win, some I lose. We’re a political movement and we’re a party that wants to govern. So there is a balance.”
The shadow Cabinet has made a show of unity in recent weeks after a major frontbench rebellion following criticisms over Sir Keir’s handling of the Israel-Hamas crisis.
Jess Phillips, the shadow domestic abuse minister, became the most high-profile Labour MP to quit the frontbench last week over the ongoing row.
She was one of 56 Labour MPs to vote for the amendment to the King’s Speech calling for a ceasefire in the Middle East, including 10 frontbenchers who resigned over the failed vote.
Sir Keir said he wanted his party “to move forward as united as we can” following the rebellion, as Westminster prepares for the Government to trigger the firing gun on campaign season.
On the podcast, Ms Rayner told i that women in particular deserved a stronger voice in the party and in politics more generally.
“We’ve just had the COVID inquiry where you’ve had senior civil servants saying it was a load of guys in a room and nobody thought about how it was going to affect women.
“Nobody thought about how it was going to affect disabled people. None of them had a clue about child care. It was like these guys in a room, it’s not even on the radar.
“I think there’s a crucial point in that you have to have diversity….So you get all of the information to make sound judgments and sound decisions that have got more depth to it than just like a bunch of guys that says, ‘I think this idea is going to be great’, ‘Yes, it clearly is great.
“You’re such a wonderful master’. So you’ve got to have that diversity that will say, ‘Actually, I think that’s rubbish’.
Ms Rayner added: “We have got to keep challenging ourselves, both with practical steps, but also by tackling our biases.
Because you need someone to tap you on the shoulder sometimes and go, ‘Hey, it’s great that you spoke for 50 minutes in this meeting, but see that woman in the corner over there? She’s not spoken once, bring her into the conversation’.
“There’s lots of challenges and reasons why we don’t have women in positions of power, but it’s not like, ‘right, I’ve got 50% [women Labour MPs] tick, done’. We’ve got to go out there and continually work at making sure that people can see a path for them to get there.”
She has previously described her relationship with Sir Keir as like an “arranged marriage” which has evolved to become closer over time.
“We were both elected by the membership differently and independently. We have worked constructively together and we continue to do so, because me and Keir both know that we need a Labour government and we need that change in this country,” she told BBC Radios 4’s Today programme in August.
The next national vote was widely expected to take place in autumn 2024, but some have interpreted Jeremy Hunt’s decision to sweep through immediate tax cuts in his Autumn Statement earlier this week as a signal that a general election could come as soon as May 2024.
Angela Rayner spoke to i as part of an exclusive new podcast series examining what a government led by Sir Keir Starmer would actually do if it wins the next election.
Hosted by Paul Waugh, i‘s chief political commentator, this fascinating four-part series will also dive into Labour’s plans for the NHS, Brexit and the economy.
