The real reason why Angela Rayner bought the £800,000 flat that proved her undoing

Angela Rayner‘s thinly disguised ambition to succeed Sir Keir Starmer has become a matter of location, location, location. And the location in question is a Commons constituency she can win at the next General Election.

For although Ms Rayner has a clear advantage over one of her chief rivals for the Labour crown, Andy Burnham, by already having a seat, that looks set to change.

On current polling projections, her Ashton-under-Lyne constituency will fall to Nigel Farage‘s Reform – along with hundreds of other Commons seats. If a general election was held tomorrow, Reform is predicted to win 348 seats and Labour just 161 (the Tories would be on an extinction-level 14).

So before she can decide how to win a Labour leadership contest, the former Deputy Prime Minister must first secure her long-term future at Westminster.

That will very likely require a so-called ‘chicken run’ – a not exactly dignified but necessary dash to a seat that would survive the Reform tsunami.

And for professional Northerner Ms Rayner, that will probably involve heading ‘down South’ to where many of those still winnable Labour seats are clustered – and where the Greens and Liberal Democrats are the main opposition, not Reform.

Hove, where Ms Rayner has just bought an £800,000 seaside flat, is one such location.

The purchase proved to be her undoing when she failed to pay the right amount of stamp duty and had to leave the Cabinet under a cloud. But it did not put paid to her future leadership ambitions.

Labour insiders claim she has eyes on replacing Hove MP Peter Kyle, the Business Secretary, who would be persuaded to depart for a seat in the House of Lords. At the last election, Mr Kyle chalked up a very comfortable majority of 19,791 over the Green Party and with Reform in fourth place.

Contrast that with Ms Rayner’s much shallower 6,791 victory in Ashton-under-Lyne where Reform was in second place.

The insiders also claim she came close to purchasing a home in another southern area that could likely vote Labour next time – Whitstable. The fashionable seaside resort in Kent is part of the Canterbury constituency represented by Independent MP Rosie Duffield.

But Ms Duffield is only an Independent after quitting Labour in protest at Sir Keir Starmer’s leadership, and won Canterbury in 2024 with an 8,653 majority over the second-placed Tories.

One local Labour source told The Mail on Sunday: ‘We heard that Rayner was about to close a deal on a place in Whitstable because she had decided to do a chicken run and stand here. It would have made sense as Whitstable itself is very Corbynista/Green and Angie could appeal to them.

‘But we were told that the deal went wrong in some way and she went to Hove instead.’

Ms Rayner has previously insisted she would stay and fight in Ashton-under-Lyne at the next election. She has also denied claims that she is already offering key government posts to allies who would back her for leader.

The chicken-run suggestions come with most Labour MPs convinced it is a matter of when, not if, Sir Keir is toppled.

In fact, growing numbers predict he will leave of his own accord in the wake of next May’s local council elections, as well as the Scottish Parliament and Welsh Senedd elections, which are predicted to be disastrous for Labour.

Ms Rayner is not the only potential Labour leader who may have to relocate to be an MP in the next Parliament.

Health Secretary Wes Streeting, who is much-favoured by ageing Blairites and the Right of the party, is defending a perilously thin majority of just 528 in his Ilford North seat. Another would-be leader – Shabana Mahmood, the Home Secretary – will also struggle to hold her Birmingham Ladywood seat.

Waiting in the wings, if not for this contest then maybe the next one, is the imposing figure of ex-Royal Marines hero Al Carns.

Despite only being elected to the Commons last year, the Defence Minister is increasingly being touted as the future of the Labour Party.

Pulling rank over all his potential rivals is Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham, who comes top in polls of both the general public and Labour members.

However, unlike most of his rivals, he doesn’t have a Commons seat, although MP Clive Lewis sought to remedy that las week by offering up his Norwich South constituency.

Party sources insist that Labour HQ would never allow Mr Burnham to take up such an offer.

This is the fevered state of the party as Rachel Reeves prepares to deliver her Budget on Wednesday – one of the most anticipated in living memory.

If she had stuck with her original plan to increase income tax, MPs whisper both she and Sir Keir would have been gone within weeks. Barring a game-changing ‘rabbit out of the hat’ – such as emulating Kemi Badenoch’s plan to abolish stamp duty – whatever the Chancellor says seems unlikely to lift Labour from its miserable position in the polls.

The flood of pre-Budget leaks means that the basic outline of the package is clear: a tax grab through the freezing of income tax thresholds and the Left-pleasing introduction of a mansion tax.

But Labour MPs talk about Ms Reeves as if she is a ventriloquist’s dummy, being manipulated by Treasury Minister Torsten Bell, who is regarded as the real author of the Budget.

The mansion tax was an idea Mr Bell first tried to land when he was working for Ed Miliband during his time as Labour leader.

Ms Reeves will be all too aware that much of the Government’s fate will rest on tackling the cost of living for ordinary voters.

Yesterday, in a pre-Budget announcement, she unveiled plans to address that in the form of a freeze on commuter and other regulated rail fares in England.

She claimed the move would ‘ease the pressure on household finances and make travelling to work, school or to visit friends and family that much easier’.

Meanwhile, Morgan McSweeney, No 10’s embattled chief of staff, has been arranging meetings between the PM and selected MPs to try to stabilise Sir Keir’s position.

One MP said: ‘They are not going well. McSweeney is in denial. He just keeps trotting out this script about how this is just a short-term problem and things are going to start to turn round.

‘Either he genuinely doesn’t understand what’s going on, or he just doesn’t want to face up to reality.’

Lurking off-stage, as ever, is Jonathan Powell, the Prime Minister’s National Security Adviser, who ran No 10 with an iron grip for Tony Blair, and is less than convinced about Mr McSweeney’s performance in the same role.

A Labour MP said: ‘He’s been having conversations with people to try and gauge how bad things are.

‘The old Blairites – Powell, Tom Allen, Tom Baldwin and Alastair Campbell – are all trying to decide if Starmer’s position is salvageable or whether they have to throw their weight behind someone else.’

To add to the intrigue, former Foreign Secretary David Miliband has let it be known that he ‘wants to come back and help’.

A Labour MP said: ‘David has been telling people he thinks this is as bad as it gets.

‘He was very worried about where this is all heading for the party.’

On Saturday night, friends of Ms Rayner denied that she had looked at buying in the Canterbury constituency and denied that she would seek to chicken run.

They also pointed out that Labour Party rules require sitting MPs to seek re-selection in their own seat before they may apply to any others.

However, allies of Mr Streeting have previously raised the prospect of relaxing that rule to allow the Health Secretary to shift seats.