The subject of this article is
standing for re-election to the
House of Commons of the United Kingdom on 4 July, and has not been an incumbent MP since
Parliament was dissolved on 30 May. Some parts of this article may be out of date during this period. |
Angela Rayner | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Deputy Leader of the Labour Party | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
Assumed office 4 April 2020 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
Leader | Keir Starmer | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
Preceded by | Tom Watson | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
Shadow Deputy Prime Minister of the United Kingdom | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
Assumed office 4 September 2023 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
Leader | Keir Starmer | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
Preceded by | Harriet Harman (2015) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
Shadow Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
Assumed office 4 September 2023 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
Leader | Keir Starmer | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
Preceded by | Lisa Nandy | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Member of Parliament for Ashton-under-Lyne | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
In office 7 May 2015 – 30 May 2024 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
Preceded by | David Heyes | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
Majority | 4,263 (11.1%) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
Personal details | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
Born | Angela Bowen 28 March 1980 Stockport, Greater Manchester, England | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
Political party | Labour | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
Spouse |
Mark Rayner
(
m. 2010;
sep. 2020) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
Children | 3 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
Residence(s) | Ashton-under-Lyne, Greater Manchester, England | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
Alma mater | Stockport College | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
Signature | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
Website |
www | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
Angela Rayner ( née Bowen; born 28 March 1980) is a British politician serving in the Shadow Cabinet of Keir Starmer as Deputy Leader of the Labour Party since 2020, and Shadow Deputy Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Shadow Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities since 2023. Rayner has been Member of Parliament (MP) for Ashton-under-Lyne since 2015. Ideologically she identifies as a socialist and as being part of Labour's soft left.
Rayner was born and raised in Stockport, where she attended the comprehensive Avondale School. She left school aged 16 whilst pregnant and without any qualifications. She later trained in social care at Stockport College and worked for the local council as a care worker. She eventually became a trade union representative within Unison, during which time she joined the Labour Party. Selected to contest Ashton‑under‑Lyne in 2014 and elected for the seat at the 2015 general election, Rayner was appointed Shadow Minister for Pensions by Jeremy Corbyn in January 2016. She was promoted in July 2016 to the Shadow Cabinet as Shadow Secretary of State for Education and Shadow Minister for Women and Equalities. As Shadow Education Secretary, she proposed the creation of a National Education Service modelled on the National Health Service (NHS).
Rayner endorsed Rebecca Long-Bailey in the 2020 Labour Party leadership election, who came second to Keir Starmer, then successfully stood for the deputy leadership, after which she was appointed Shadow First Secretary of State. She was also appointed party chair and national campaign coordinator but was removed from these roles in a reshuffle following Labour's poor performance at the 2021 local elections, subsequently being appointed Shadow Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and Shadow Secretary of State for the Future of Work. She was appointed Shadow Deputy Prime Minister in a 2023 reshuffle, and was also appointed Shadow Levelling-Up Secretary and Strategic Lead for Labour's New Deal. Rayner's strong support base and potential as a future leader led to the New Statesman ranking her as the eighth most powerful person in British left-wing politics for 2023.
Angela Bowen was born on 28 March 1980 in Stockport, Greater Manchester. [1] She attended Avondale School in Stockport, leaving the school aged 16 after becoming pregnant, and did not obtain any qualifications. [2] [3] Rayner has stated: "When I was young, we didn't have books because my mother could not read or write." [4] She later studied part-time at Stockport College, learning British Sign Language, and gaining an NVQ Level 2 in social care. [1] [5]
After leaving college Rayner worked for Stockport Metropolitan Borough Council as a care worker for a number of years. During this time, she was also elected as a trade union representative for Unison. She was later elected as convenor of Unison North West, becoming the union's most senior official in the region. [6] [7] The Guardian featured a lengthy profile of Rayner in 2012, as part of an article on a trade union officer's working life. [8]
In September 2014 Rayner was selected as the Labour Party's prospective parliamentary candidate for Ashton-under-Lyne. She was elected as MP for the constituency at the 2015 general election, winning with 48.1% of the vote and a majority of 10,756 votes. [9] [10] [11] She delivered her maiden speech on 2 June 2015. [12] [13]
Rayner nominated Andy Burnham in the 2015 Labour leadership election, but was one of just 18 MPs to back the incumbent Jeremy Corbyn against Owen Smith in the 2016 leadership election. [14]
In 2023 Rayner was pressed[ by whom?] to defend her use of public money to claim for Apple AirPods, stating all of her technology had to sync. [15]
On 1 July 2016, after a series of resignations from the shadow cabinet, Corbyn appointed Rayner as Shadow Secretary of State for Education. [6] [16] She supported the notion of a 'National Education Service' to be modelled along similar lines to the National Health Service (NHS), also promoting an increase in funding for early years education. [17] She was considered by some as a possible future Labour leader. [18] [19]
At the snap 2017 general election, Rayner was re-elected as MP for Ashton-under-Lyne with an increased vote share of 60.4% and an increased majority of 11,295 votes. [20] [21]
At the 2019 general election Rayner was again re-elected, with a decreased vote share of 48.1% and a decreased majority of 4,263. [22]
Rayner did not stand for the Labour leadership in the 2020 leadership election, and supported Rebecca Long-Bailey, who came second to Keir Starmer. However, Rayner stood for Deputy Leader and was elected on 4 April 2020, thus replacing Tom Watson. In the days following she was appointed Deputy Leader of the Opposition, Shadow First Secretary of State and Chair of the Labour Party. [23] [24] [25] Rayner was appointed to the Privy Council on 12 February 2021. [26] Rayner's deputy leadership has been characterised by opposition to some of the government response to the COVID-19 pandemic and issues such as Partygate, the September 2022 mini-budget, and the cost of living crisis.
Rayner was removed from her roles as the Labour Party's chair and national campaign coordinator in a reshuffle by Starmer on 8 May 2021, following the 2021 local elections. [27] [28] Rayner was subsequently appointed Shadow Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and Shadow Secretary of State for the Future of Work. [29]
In May 2022 Rayner said she would resign if she received a fixed penalty notice for breaching COVID-19 regulations while campaigning during the run-up to the Hartlepool by-election and local elections the previous year. [30] The controversy surrounding the event was dubbed " Beergate". [31] She and Starmer were both cleared by Durham Police in July 2022 who said there was "no case to answer". [32]
On 4 September 2023, Starmer appointed Rayner as shadow levelling up secretary, and shadow deputy prime minister. [33] Rayner's strong support base and potential as a future leader led to the New Statesman ranking her as the eighth most powerful person in British left-wing politics for 2023. [34]
Rayner identifies as a socialist. [35] [36] In a 2017 interview to The Guardian discussing her political beliefs, Rayner highlighted her pragmatism, describing herself as being part of the " soft left" of the Labour Party. [18] She has strongly criticised former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, as he "did not command the respect of the party", and critiqued his lack of "discipline" when it came to dealing with allegations of antisemitism. [37]
Rayner has described herself as "quite hardline" on law and order issues, having suffered from antisocial behaviour when she was young. In an interview, she said police should "shoot your terrorists and ask questions second" and that she had told her local police force to "beat down the door of the criminals and sort them out and antagonise them." [38]
Rayner has made a political point of her working-class roots. She has asked Hansard transcribers not to correct her speeches, preferring purportedly "incorrect" grammar "because it's who I am". [39]
In 2019, Rayner declared her support for the WASPI campaign for compensation for women affected by government pension age changes. [40]
A member of the Labour Friends of Palestine and the Middle East, Rayner has condemned the killings of Palestinians during the 2018–2019 Gaza border protests and has repeatedly cited Israeli violations of human rights against Palestinians on social media. [41] On 10 January 2024, Rayner stated that the Labour Party "completely opposes" a policy to boycott, disinvest from, or sanction (BDS) Israel. [42]
Rayner has said that she "didn't have a particularly strong view either way" on Brexit. [43] She campaigned and voted to remain in the European Union (EU) during the 2016 Brexit referendum. [44] [45] After the referendum result, she voted in favour of triggering Article 50, arguing that although she was "fiercely pro-EU" she was "also a democrat". [45] She opposed Labour's policy for a second referendum adopted under Jeremy Corbyn [46] and argued that it would "undermine democracy". [47] She also opposed a delay to Article 50. [48] When asked how she would vote in a second referendum in December 2019, Rayner said she would vote leave as long as the withdrawal agreement "protects the economy and jobs". [49]
In October 2020 Rayner called Conservative MP Chris Clarkson "scum" as he was giving a speech in Parliament, and was rebuked by the Parliament's deputy speaker for doing so. [50] [51] She later apologised. [52] [53] Clarkson had been critical of the Mayor of Greater Manchester, Andy Burnham, who had been seeking financial support for Greater Manchester following local restrictions on businesses being introduced. Clarkson's constituency falls within the boundaries of Greater Manchester, as does Rayner's. [50] In September 2021, Rayner strongly criticised senior members of the Conservative Party, stating: "We cannot get any worse than a bunch of scum, homophobic, racist, misogynistic, absolute pile... of banana republic... Etonian... piece of scum". [54] Some Labour MPs, while saying it was not the language that they would have used, defended her comments, including Steve Reed, John McDonnell and Lisa Nandy. [55] Starmer distanced himself from her remarks, but said it was up to Rayner if she wanted to apologise or not, [56] while other Labour MPs, including shadow cabinet ministers, condemned her in stronger terms. [57] The former Labour cabinet minister Lord Adonis said that if Rayner did not apologise for her comments, Starmer should say that he no longer has confidence in her as the deputy leader of the party. Adonis told Times Radio that her remarks were a way to start an election campaign for the leadership of the Labour Party. [58] Several Conservative MPs, including Grant Shapps, Amanda Milling and Oliver Dowden, condemned her comments. [58] Rayner later apologised for her comments in light of the murder of David Amess, a Conservative MP, the following month. [59]
Rayner supports transgender rights, saying that they do not conflict with women's rights. [60] [61]
Aged 16, Angela Bowen had her first son, [2] Ryan, with her 19-year-old boyfriend, Neil Batty, and took her GCSEs while pregnant. She and Batty then lived together for a while. [62] In 2010, she married Mark Rayner, a Unison official. [1] She has had two more sons, Charlie, born prematurely at 23 weeks, and Jimmy; she says the care that Charlie received demonstrated the importance of the NHS to her. [7] [63] Rayner lives in her constituency of Ashton-under-Lyne with her family. She became a grandmother, aged 37, when Ryan had a daughter in November 2017. [62] [64] Rayner and her husband separated in 2020. [62] [65] In the summer of 2022, journalists began reporting that Rayner was "in a relationship" with Labour MP Sam Tarry. The pair neither confirmed nor denied this, [66] [67] but she has stated that they split up in 2023. [62]
In an interview in 2018, Rayner said that her mother had been unable to read or write; she had previously mentioned this in a tribute she made to her mother in 2016. [68] In a 2022 interview, Rayner said that she grew up in poverty on a council estate and could have been taken into care. [43] In the same interview, she recounted that after a year-long training programme to lose over 6 stone (84 lb; 38 kg) in weight, she took out a bank loan of £5,600 for cosmetic surgery on her 30th birthday. [43] [69]
In October 2021, Rayner reported receiving a number of death threats and abusive messages. The police arrested a 52-year-old man in Halifax. [70] She cancelled a number of meetings with her constituents due to fears for her own safety. [70] Later, a 36-year-old man from Cambridgeshire was prosecuted after sending her a threatening email. The man pleaded guilty in court to sending the email and was sentenced to 15 weeks in prison, suspended for 18 months. [71] Earlier in March 2019, Rayner said that she had fitted panic buttons at her home after rape and death threats were sent to her. [72]
On 24 April 2022, Rayner was the subject of a report in The Mail on Sunday, by Glen Owen, in which it was alleged that she had tried to distract Boris Johnson in the Commons by crossing and uncrossing her legs in a similar manner to Sharon Stone in a scene from the 1992 film Basic Instinct. [73] The report was subsequently condemned by a range of voices across the political spectrum including the Prime Minister and the Speaker of the House. The Independent Press Standards Organisation (IPSO) reported that it had received 5,500 complaints about the article and would undertake an investigation. [74] Lia Nici, the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, later repeated the claims in a BBC interview. [75]
In March 2024, a former Conservative Party deputy chairman, Michael Ashcroft, alleged in a book, serialised in The Mail on Sunday, that Rayner had misled tax officials in the sale of her semi-detached council house in 2007. [76] [77] Rayner said that she had done nothing wrong, and declined to publish her tax records or tax advice. Greater Manchester Police said they found no evidence that any offence had been committed. At the request of James Daly, Conservative MP for Bury North, the police agreed to review their decision not to investigate. [78] [79] [80] Daly also alleged Rayner may have wrongly declared where she was living on the electoral register. [77]
The police confirmed in April 2024 that they had opened an investigation into the allegations. [81] [78] [82] A poll by the research consultancy Savanta indicated that 56% of Labour voters and 26% of Tory voters thought the allegations were a smear campaign by the Conservative Party. [83] Rayner subsequently said that she would "do the right thing and step down" if she were found to have broken the law. [84] [85] In May 2024, news sources suggested Rayner was set to be interviewed by the GMP under caution. [86] [87] Later that month, GMP and Stockport Council both said that they would take no action against Rayner. [88] [89] [90] [90] Rayner was also cleared by HM Revenue and Customs, which concluded that she did not owe any capital gains tax and thus no action would be taken. [91] [88]
She met her husband, Mark Rayner, through the trade union movement. They are now separated. [...]
The allegations have sprung from claims made in a book by Lord Ashcroft, a former Conservative Party deputy chairman about Ms Rayner's ex-council house on Vicarage Road in Stockport, Greater Manchester.