6 min read
Angela Rayner has accused Reform UK of being anti-working class in a bid to help Labour keep hold of a London council that it has controlled since its inception over six decades ago.
On Wednesday night, the former deputy prime minister campaigned in Barking and Dagenham, east London, where Nigel Farage’s party is hoping to make a major electoral breakthrough in the capital at the 7 May local elections. A YouGov poll published last week gave Reform a slender four per cent lead over the Labour Party.
The Manchester MP’s visit to the outer London area came a day after Prime Minister Keir Starmer avoided being referred to the Privileges Committee over the Lord Mandelson affair, and amid intense speculation about how much longer he has in No 10.
Speaking to Labour activists at the Trades Hall working men’s club in Dagenham, the party’s former deputy leader, who resigned from cabinet in September over unpaid stamp duty, joked about the current negativity within Labour as it braces for a bruising set of nationwide results next month. On the same night, pollster and Tory peer Lord Robert Hayward projected that Labour would lose a huge 1,850 council seats across the country.
“The one thing I say about Labour is we’re not happy unless we’re unhappy. So, we do like to know about the things we haven’t got, right?” said Rayner.
Accompanied in east London by a videographer, as well as her partner, Sam Tarry, a former Labour MP who was also previously a Barking and Dagenham councillor, Rayner sought to frame Reform UK as a threat to the area’s working-class communities.
“The kids here, he [Farage] wants those kept in poverty.
“He doesn’t want employment rights, and we’re delivering employment rights in the biggest way for a generation. We’re bringing down waiting lists in the NHS. He wants to make sure that we go to an insurance-based system. He doesn’t want a free NHS at the point of use anymore.
“So that’s not going to work for our communities here.”
Rayner added: “I talked about the poverty I grew up in when I was a child, but the one thing that never occurred to me, and was never an issue, was that I could be evicted from my council home, and that’s why we need the biggest wave in a generation of council homes, and we need to build them now.”
The local Labour MP, Margaret Mullane, who used to be a barmaid at the working men’s club, told PoliticsHome that Rayner’s working-class roots made her an effective campaigner in that part of the capital. One Labour activist described her as a “future prime minister”.
While Rayner is seen as a leading candidate to succeed Starmer in Downing Street, her political future is currently complicated by an outstanding HMRC investigation into her tax affairs, which many Labour figures believe must be completed before she can launch a bid to become prime minister.
She could also face a competition with Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham to secure the support of the Labour left and soft left. Burnham, who PoliticsHome revealed last week is also campaigning in London ahead of polling day next week, must find a parliamentary seat before launching a leadership bid of his own.
Rayner showed no signs of rebellion on Wednesday night, using her speech to campaigners to talk up the Labour government’s achievements after nearly two years in office.
“I’m so proud to have had the opportunity to represent you as your deputy prime minister, and make no apologies for being part of this Labour family and to continue believing what Labour does, because I’ve seen in action what Labour has done to give me opportunities that my mum never had,” she said.
However, should 7 May go as badly for Labour as the new Lord Hayward research suggests, then Starmer’s position in No 10 will almost certainly come under renewed pressure at the end of next week, which in turn will likely push Rayner back into the spotlight.
As well as losses in London, where Zack Polanski’s Greens are expected to be the primary beneficiaries, Labour is set to lose council seats across England, go backwards in Scotland, and fall out of power in Wales for the first time since Cardiff’s devolved institutions were established at the turn of the century.
Defeat in Barking and Dagenham would be particularly painful for Labour, with the party having won all 51 council seats when they were last up for election four years ago.
Local Labour councillor Phil Walker said that the Mandleson vetting row was being brought up by residents on the doorstep in Barking and Dagenham, compounding the PM’s unpopularity. “They think Starmer is stupid”, he told PoliticsHome. “It adds to an image that isn’t good.” Another councillor said the issue had cut through “even to kids”.
Walker added that next week’s elections pose Labour’s biggest test in this London council “since 2006 when we kicked out the BNP (British National Party)”.
“The one thing I say about Labour is we’re not happy unless we’re unhappy,” Rayner tells activists
The Dagenham wards seen by Labour activists as most at risk of falling to Farage’s party are Village, Heath and Eastbrook. A collapse in support in this part of east London would be especially ominous for Mullane, who will be defending a majority of just over 7,000 at the next general election. “There is real pressure to keep Village – it is the heart of the constituency,” she told PoliticsHome.
Many residents who opened their doors to Labour activists on Wednesday night described themselves as undecided, which Mullane said demonstrates that “turnout will be crucial” for Labour if the party is to stave off the threat of Reform in Barking and Dagenham.
The cost of living and crime dominated doorstep conversations, as did the recent five per cent council tax rise. Labour’s decision early in government to make the winter fuel allowance means-tested, later amended after a major backlash, was cited as having caused “so much damage” with voters in the area, even nearly two years later.
Shortly after being visited by Labour activists, one resident came out of his house to dispose of the party’s literature in the recycling bin.
Speaking earlier this week ahead of the locals, the Prime Minister’s political spokesperson said: “These local elections come down to a simple choice.
“Labour on your side, with your local Labour council working in partnership with a Labour Government, or Nigel Farage and Reform, who would put your family, your NHS and your community at risk.”