Rayner: Starmer needs to ‘set out change’ and bring back Burnham
Angela Rayner has called on Sir Keir Starmer to “set out the change our country needs” as she warned Labour is facing its “last chance” after a disastrous set of election results.
The former deputy leader, widely seen as a potential successor to the Prime Minister, stopped short of calling for him to quit but set out a series of steps he needed to take to win back working-class voters.
She added that it had been a mistake to block Andy Burnham’s possible return to Westminster, saying Labour needs to bring its “best players into Parliament”.
Greater Manchester mayor Mr Burnham is also seen as a potential rival to Sir Keir, but his attempt to stand in the Gorton and Denton by-election was thwarted by Labour’s hierarchy.
In a 1,000-word assessment of what Labour needs to do, Ms Rayner said: “What we are doing isn’t working, and it needs to change. This may be our last chance.”
In England, Nigel Farage’s Reform UK snatched councils, some of which had been Labour for generations, in northern England while Zack Polanski’s Green Party lured voters away in former urban strongholds, including taking control of some London authorities.
In Wales, Labour was reduced from the party in government to a single-figure rump in one of its former heartlands.
Ms Rayner said: “In London, we lost young people who fear they will never afford a home. In my patch and across the north, we lost working people whose wages are too low and costs too high. In Scotland and Wales, people do not currently see Labour as the answer.
“We are in danger of becoming a party of the well-off, not working people.”
Sir Keir will deliver a speech on Monday at the start of a potentially make-or-break week for his premiership.
On Wednesday the King’s Speech will set out his Government’s priorities in Parliament.
Ms Rayner said: “Policy tweaks will not fix the fundamental challenges facing our country. This Government needs, at pace, to put measures in place that make people’s lives tangibly better, while fixing the foundations of a system rigged against them.
“The Prime Minister must now meet the moment and set out the change our country needs.
“Change our economic agenda to prioritise making people better off, change how we run our party so that all voices are listened to, and change how we do politics.
“Labour exists to make working people better off. That is not happening fast enough, and it needs to change – now.”
Ms Rayner quit as deputy leader and deputy prime minister last September after failing to pay the correct tax on a flat in Hove.
In her statement on Sunday she was critical of some decisions made while she was in the Government: “The Peter Mandelson scandal showed a toxic culture of cronyism.
“Decisions like cutting winter fuel allowance just weren’t what people expected from a Labour government.”
Published: by Radio NewsHub