Keir Starmer is facing mounting Labour jockeying today with Angela Rayner pushing for a comeback – insisting ‘I’m not dead yet’.
Infighting is threatening to escalate with the PM away in China, as the party braces for a potential by-election humiliation in Gorton & Denton.
Ms Rayner, who served as his deputy until she was forced to quit in September over unpaid tax, has been steadily raising her profile again.
Allies have been briefing that she would throw her hat into the ring for the leadership if Wes Streeting – seen as on the right of Labour – mounted a challenge.
Meanwhile, tensions are running high between Downing Street and Andy Burnham after Sir Keir spearheaded a move to block the Manchester mayor from becoming the by-election candidate.
Extraordinarily, Mr Burnham accused No10 yesterday of lying about whether he was warned in advance that the party’s ruling national executive committee would prevent him from standing.
Angela Rayner, who served as Keir Starmer’s deputy until she was forced to quit in September over unpaid tax, has been steadily raising her profile again
Infighting is threatening to escalate with the PM away in China (pictured last week)
Allies have been briefing that she would throw her hat into the ring for the leadership if Wes Streeting- seen as on the right of Labour – mounted a challenge
According to the Times, Ms Rayner used a fundraising event last week to praise Labour achievements including school breakfast clubs and the abolition of the two-child benefit cap.
But she said: ‘We’ve done some things wrong. We should be humble enough to accept when we’ve made mistakes. We should do better, and we should do more.’
Ms Rayner insisted she was ‘not dead yet’ and would be ‘part of the journey’ of confronting Reform.
‘We have a threat that looms, about whether we divide our country, whether we turn in on ourselves, whether we blame somebody else. Or whether we do the collective, which is what our movement and our party is about,’ she said.
She added: ‘I’m going to be part of that journey because I ain’t giving up … I ain’t giving those keys to No 10 to Nigel Farage.’
Both Reform and the Greens have vowed to throw everything at the contest in Gorton & Denton, due on February 26, with some in Labour fearing they could come third.
Speaking to reporters en route to China, the PM tried to play down the alarm and urged left-wingers not to support the Greens.
‘There’s only one party to stop Reform and that’s the Labour party,’ the PM insisted.
He said the by-election would be about ‘Labour values’ and ‘delivering on the cost of living’ with a ‘strong record in that constituency of what we’ve already done’.
And he went on: ‘You can see from their candidate what politics they’re going to bring to that constituency, the politics of division, of toxic division, of tearing people apart.
‘That’s not what that constituency is about, it’s not what Manchester is about, so this is a straight fight between Labour and Reform and there’s only one party that can stop the politics of Reform in the by election and that’s the Labour Party.’
Tensions are running high between Downing Street and Andy Burnham after Sir Keir spearheaded a move to block the Manchester mayor from becoming the by-election candidate
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Asked if he would welcome Mr Burnham back as an MP when his term as Greater Manchester mayor ends in 2028, Sir Keir said: ‘Well that’s a matter for Andy.’
He said they had ‘worked really well together’ when they were both in Parliament a decade ago and hailed Mr Burnham as ‘one of our flagship devolution stories’.
Sir Keir also said that the ‘first call’ he made after hearing about last year’s attack on a synagogue in Manchester was to Mr Burnham, and that they have more recently worked together on the Northern Powerhouse Rail project.
‘As to what he wants to do when’s he’s not Mayor of Manchester anymore, that’s a matter for Andy, but he’s doing a first class job.’
