Angela Rayner will never play ‘the role of political girlfriend to Wes Streeting’ to help him win a leadership challenge because she is more likely than him to win it, former Tory cabinet minister Michael Gove warned today.
With rumours rife of a potential Streeting-Rayner pact to take on the Prime Minister in a leadership challenge, Lord Gove said he believed the former Deputy Prime Minister was ‘in a better position’ than Streeting to take down Sir Keir Starmer.
He also said he believed that leadership front runner Ed Miliband was ‘unlikely to run for leadership again’ although he is a favourite with Labour Party members in any battle for a replacement for Starmer.
The Telegraph reported today that MPs close to Mr Streeting had approached Ms Rayner about the prospect of a pact.
Speaking to BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, Lord Gove, now Editor of the Spectator magazine, said recent political ‘over manoeuvring’ was ‘a sure sign of decline for the Prime Minister’ and was ‘déjà vu for me when I was a Tory cabinet minister’.
Lord Gove, who served in cabinet roles across the governments of David Cameron, Theresa May, Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak, witnessing multiple leadership challenges, said the Health Minister had ‘done very well at the Labour Party conference by invoking Angela Rayner and praising her and also on issues like Gaza tacked a little bit to the left in order to maximise his appeal’.
But he warned: ‘I think that Wes Streeting is mistaken if he thinks that Angela Rayner is going to play essentially the role of political girlfriend to his ambitions because I actually think that Angela Rayner is in a better position than Wes Streeting to win any leadership election.
‘The idea that just because she’s had the difficulties she did over tax that she is going to meekly accept Wes Streeting as her route back to respectability – I don’t think she will accept.’
And ruling out Miliband as a leadership contender, he agreed he was way ahead in the polls but said: ‘I don’t think he would want to go for the leadership again although he is undoubtedly very popular because he has a clear sense of mission in the role in which he occupies as Energy Secretary.’
Meanwhile the Editor of the left leaning New Statesman magazine Tom McTague said he did not think that Wes Streeting was expecting ‘Angela Rayner to lie down or let him take the crown without something of a battle’.
He said: ‘I think they are all eyeing each other quite carefully at the moment and they are not taking each other’s side.’
But he warned that it was now ‘the standard conventional wisdom of Labour MPs and Labour cabinet members’ that a leadership challenge was imminent.
He said: ‘There is a certain sense of a breakdown of order and direction in this government so we are seeing people freelance and saying what their ideas are, and we are starting to see positioning ahead of what looks increasingly like an inevitable leadership challenge and election next year.
‘That’s how people in the cabinet are talking about it – that’s how most Labour MPs see it so – whether that happens or not – it is currently the standard conventional wisdom of Labour MPs and Labour cabinet members.
‘They are expecting a challenge. They don’t think this can go on any longer and they are starting to position.’
Earlier sources close to disgraced former housing secretary Rayner ruled out rumours that she had apparently been promised a Cabinet role if she backed Streeting for a future leadership run.
They said Ms Rayner, whose admission of stamp duty evasion over her flat in Brighton, first revealed by the Mail on Sunday, led to her unseating, would not be ‘played like a pawn’.
One Rayner supporter told the Telegraph that ‘very senior-level party people’ had been pushing for a ‘peace deal’ between the two and have offered Ms Rayner ‘any job in the Cabinet she chooses’.
But a source close to Ms Rayner said: ‘There is no vacancy and there is no pact.
‘Amidst all the stirring and silly games, Angela is focused on representing her constituents and ensuring that this Government delivers. Angela is made of tough stuff and she will not be played like a pawn.’
A spokesperson for Mr Streeting said: ‘This is a silly season story and completely untrue.
‘Wes’s entire focus is on getting the NHS through this winter, and the only deal he’s interested in doing is with the resident doctors to avert strikes.
‘People appear to be getting carried away and misinterpreting his support for Angela as something other than supporting a good person going through a difficult time.’
Last month Streeting was forced to deny he was leading plans for a challenge after Starmer criticised a ‘toxic’ culture in Downing Street after anonymous briefings against him.
Earlier this week it was revealed that Rayner would return to front line of politics by leading moves to pressure Starmer to speed up the introduction of workers’ rights reforms.
She is set to table an amendment to the Workers’ Rights Bill she previously championed so that key measures come into force sooner that previously planned.
Labour’s flagship workers’ rights package was stripped of the day-one right to claims against unfair dismissal amid a stand-off between peers and MPs.
It is believed that Ms Rayner will not seek to restore the watered down measure but she will seek to have that qualifying period, reduced from the current two years, apply from 2026 rather than 2027 as is currently planned.
She and former minister Justin Madders are understood to have been speaking to MPs and union colleagues as they prepare the amendment together.
Read more
- Is a bold coronation looming for Wes Streeting as Labour leadership debates heat up with Angela Rayner’s unexpected return in the mix?
- Angela Rayner’s ultimatum: Is she refusing to be Streeting’s pawn while schemes swirl to topple Sir Keir Starmer?
- Is Angela Rayner’s lavish resignation overshadowed by Wes Streeting’s subtle ambitions, positioning him as the next Labour leader amidst trade union adoration?
- Is Angela Rayner plotting a bold political comeback by championing workers’ rights reforms to challenge Keir Starmer?
- Amidst rising tensions, is Angela Rayner positioning herself as Labour’s next left-wing leader?
