Angela Rayner has warned Labour has “not shown our values” in decisions such as scrapping the winter fuel allowance under Sir Keir Starmer’s leadership.
The former deputy prime minister said in an exclusive interview, conducted before last week’s local elections, that Labour had been “blown off course” and suffered a backlash from voters.
She added that controversies such as Labour’s stance on the war in Gaza had created “a serious amount of damage for us” and suggested the party needs to reconnect with younger voters.
Rayner said, “We’ve not shown our values in some of the decisions that have been made. For example, the winter fuel allowance, the sense of unfairness, and that doesn’t speak to who you are, so people feel ‘we’re not sure about you on that’.”
“They also feel that some of the decisions our government have made are not speaking to our values, that’s pretty clear. You can see that with what’s happened with the war in Gaza, they feel we haven’t stuck to our values on that.”
“I think the public, it’s not a sense of ‘are you one side or another?’ it’s ‘are you right or wrong, are you standing up for our principles?’ and they’re quite passionate about that, and it’s blown us off course, and it’s created a serious amount of damage for us.”
Angela Rayner speaks to Alistair Campbell and The i Paper‘s Vicky SprattAlthough Rayner was speaking before the current challenge to Keir Starmer, she is considered one of the favourites to succeed him should he quit or be ousted.
The interview took place while speculation over Starmer’s future, following the Peter Mandelson scandal, was current.
It also comes amid a series of interventions, after the local elections, in which Rayner called for the Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham to be allowed to return to Parliament, and said: “What we are doing isn’t working, and it needs to change. This may be our last chance.”
Rayner was interviewed as part of an investigation by The Rest is Politics podcast into the plight of Gen Z – young adults aged between 14 and 29.
The comments, published today, come as Starmer is facing calls to quit from dozens of his own MPs in the aftermath of local elections which saw Reform win swathes of councils and seats in former Labour heartlands.
In the wide-ranging interview, the former Deputy Prime Minister covered topics such as her time in government, what she calls short-term “sugar rush” politics, the rise of populism and Labour’s communications problem.
Rayner addressed the challenges that the Labour Government has faced. She served as deputy prime minister and housing minister before standing down last September after failing to pay enough council tax on a £800,000 flat in Hove.
“We are not showing [people] the destination. We are saying it’s hard. We are not saying what is hard and where we are going,” Rayner said.
She said: “We need to put rocket boosters up our manifesto…That’s where you get the confidence. That’s where you drive investment. That’s where you get the change.”
Of her time as Secretary of State for Housing, Rayner said she was “in a rush” to push through legislation, including the Renters’ Rights Act, the Planning and Infrastructure Act, the Workers’ Rights Act and leasehold reform.
“I took on more legislation than any other Secretary of State,” she said. She added that being asked to choose which reforms were more important was “like picking between her children”: “I couldn’t pick because they were all needed in order to make the change that people need to feel.”
Rayner warned that young people in particular “feel they’re being saddled with the challenges of Brexit, the COVID pandemic and the 2008 economic crash” and said that politicians need to catch up.
Rayner questioned whether politicians were thinking enough about Gen Z – born between 1997 and 2012 – who she said risk becoming “a lost generation.”
“That was my concern and why I am impatient for the change – and I make no apologies for that,” she said.
“I am creating the basis of change that will pay dividends to the next generation,” she said. “The reforms we are making now will help. They will alleviate some of the challenges – but it’s not going to happen overnight.”
But she added: “We have not helped ourselves in our communications,” and argued that politicians are “waking up to” a new reality of how young people “digest the news and get information” on social media.
Until now, she said, Labour had faced this with “evolution rather than revolution” and said, “we are going to be left behind like the dinosaurs if we aren’t able to grasp that nettle.”
In a speech on Monday, which was widely billed as make-or-break, the Prime Minister attempted to reset his leadership by announcing a new offer for young people, such as “an ambitious youth experience scheme” with Europe and “to go further” on apprenticeships and further education.
Starmer said: “So we will go much further on our investment in apprenticeships, in technical excellence colleges, in special educational needs. We will go much further on our investment in apprenticeships, in technical excellence colleges, in special educational needs.”
“We will make sure every young person struggling to find work will get a guaranteed offer of a job, training or a work placement. And we will go much further with our pride in place programme, back the millions of people who give their time and effort to young people in their community. We will back them, not just with money, but with power,” the Prime Minister also said.
The Gen Z Story is a four-part series for The Rest Is Politics, introduced by Alastair Campbell and presented by The i Paper’s Housing and Society Correspondent, Vicky Spratt. The full interview with Angela Rayner is available on The Rest Is Politics feed.
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