The query is not will Angela Rayner run – however can she win? I do know the reply, writes DAN HODGES

Angela Rayner is no longer ‘on manoeuvres’. Instead, she now has Keir Starmer directly in her sights, and has begun opening up with live rounds.

‘Angela’s going for it,’ a minister told me last night. ‘She’s decided it’s time to make her move.’

Until this week, several of Labour’s leadership contenders have been tacitly criticising the Prime Minister, but doing so under a euphemistic Westminster code. Wes Streeting has complained about ‘people around Keir’.

In the wake of Labour’s defeat in the Gorton and Denton by-election, Andy Burnham called for ‘a serious conversation about our political system and its pervading culture’.

But on Tuesday, Rayner finally turned off the scrambler. Addressing an audience of Mainstream members – a soft-Left membership grouping – she directly attacked Starmer for dragging the party to destruction.

‘The very survival of the Labour Party is at stake,’ she warned.

‘As a party and a movement we cannot hide: we cannot go through the motions in the face of decline. We are running out of time.’

She then followed up with an assault on one of his key policies, the proposed reform of Indefinite Leave to Remain, which would see recent migrants told retrospectively that they will have to wait longer for settled status.

‘We cannot talk about earning a settlement if we keep moving the goalposts,’ she said. ‘[It] undermines our sense of fair play. It’s un-British.’

What’s more, Rayner’s campaign launch – which is what this week’s event effectively was – did not just involve some fiery rhetoric. Starmer’s heiress apparent is now putting her money where her mouth is – or more accurately, putting rich Labour supporters’ money where her mouth is.

Her latest entry in the register of members’ interests shows Rayner has recently raised £70,000 for ‘staffing’ and ‘campaign’ activities. She has also boosted her coffers with an estimated £100,000 from speaking engagements.

According to her agency, Chartwell Speakers, the former Deputy Prime Minister can be hired to talk with ‘directness and credibility about leadership under pressure’. There are also reports she has signed a lucrative deal to publish her memoirs.

Some observers have claimed this frenetic fundraising is designed to help her write a large cheque to the Inland Revenue to cover the underpaid stamp duty on her luxury flat in Hove, East Sussex, that precipitated her resignation from office at the end of last year. But one of Rayner’s allies told me she expects to be completely exonerated by HMRC when the long-awaited investigation into her tax affairs is concluded later this year.

Another of her colleagues believes there is a more obvious reason she is bolstering her personal finances.

‘Why does she need all this money for “staff”?’ one minister asks. ‘She’s not a minister and she’s not Deputy Leader any more. There’s only one explanation: she’s building up a war-chest for her leadership campaign.’

This theory is bolstered by the fact that at the end of January, Rayner formally incorporated a new, rather grandly titled company: ‘The Office of Angela Rayner Limited’.

 

Her supporters insist this was established solely to manage her income from non-parliamentary activities. But such companies are routinely set up by MPs to manage their leadership campaigns. What’s more, the Companies House filing explicitly states the firm’s purpose is ‘to support democratic and progressive values through political and policy work, including without limitation supporting the Labour Party’.

The truth is Rayner has been quietly working on her unofficial leadership campaign for months. At the start of the year I had lunch with a Labour MP who told me she had openly begun to offer Cabinet positions to trusted allies. Another told me she had been in direct discussion with Manchester mayor Andy Burnham about running on a ‘dream ticket’ with the so-called King of the North.

Burnham’s allies deny any formal deal has been agreed. But they admit that he and Rayner have a semi-official ‘non-aggression pact’. ‘I don’t see any circumstances where Andy would run against Angela,’ one told me.

So the question is no longer, will Angela run? It’s, now she’s running, can she win?

To this, the answer is yes. Whatever the wider country thinks of her, Rayner is popular within the wider Labour movement – if not always among her parliamentary colleagues.

When I texted one MP to ask what they thought of her leadership bid, they responded: ‘I can’t type that, it’s too bad.’ Then they added simply: ‘More ego than brains I’m afraid.’

But that is a minority view within Labour – including among an increasing number of backbenchers.

Since the party’s catastrophic loss to the Greens in Gorton and Denton, the view among Starmer’s shell-shocked troops has changed.

Before, their mood was: ‘I want to get rid of him, but I’m not sure who the right candidate is.’ That’s now become: ‘It doesn’t matter who the candidate is, they can’t do any worse. He has to go.’

Prior to Gorton and Denton, Labour MPs were prepared to tolerate a strategy that focused on neutralising Reform UK. Now they couldn’t give a monkeys what Nigel Farage does: their sole focus is on the far-Left Zack Polanski and the Greens.

As one MP said: ‘Farage threatens our majority. But Polanski is a threat to the entire party. It’s existential. If we don’t see him off, it’s over for us.’

Which means leadership candidates who might have been unpalatable even a few months ago suddenly have their attractions. Rayner. Burnham. Even Ed Miliband – by far the most popular MP among party members.

The view among the bulk of Labour MPs is that the party needs to pivot Left. And if that means abandoning the Red Wall, or the centre-ground to Reform and the Tories, so be it.

‘Whoever replaces Starmer has to be able to shore up our base,’ one minister told me. ‘We’ve got three years: we’ve got time to get the floating voters back on board. And if our core supporters abandon us, we’re done for.’

To me, this looks like panic masquerading as strategy. But to be fair, Labour MPs should be panicking.

Because Rayner is right. Starmer is leading his party to destruction.

On his watch, Reform have swarmed into Labour’s northern heartlands while Kemi Badenoch appears to have brought the Conservative Party back from the dead.

Former backers are fleeing. The unions are threatening to cut off their historic support to Labour.

Business again sees Labour as growth killers. The party’s activist base is facing annihilation in the local elections. Scotland and Wales are set to become no-go zones for anyone sporting a red rosette. So yes, the prospect of Prime Minister Rayner is no longer unthinkable. Indeed, it may no longer even be unlikely.

The phoney war is over. The campaign to replace Starmer is officially underway. Angela Rayner has fired the first shots – but they won’t be the last.