Keir Starmer, left, former deputy prime minister Angela Rayner and Manchester mayor Andy Burnham, April 2026 (Paul Ellis/Pool Photo via AP)
4 min read
Former deputy prime minister Angela Rayner has backed away from challenging Keir Starmer for the leadership herself – but called for Andy Burnham to be allowed back into the parliamentary party.
In a lengthy statement released on Sunday afternoon following a poor set of election results for Labour in England, Wales and Scotland, Rayner warned: “What we are doing isn’t working, and it needs to change. This may be our last chance.”
She added: “We are in danger of becoming a party of the well-off, not working people. The Peter Mandelson scandal showed a toxic culture of cronyism.”
Advising Labour to put “the common interest ahead of factionalism”, the Labour MP for Ashton-under-Lyne called on the leadership “to acknowledge that blocking Andy Burnham was a mistake”.
Rayner has not called directly for a leadership change, nor demanded that Starmer set out a timetable for his departure, as almost 40 Labour MPs have now done.
But her intervention is critical of the Prime Minister and will be interpreted by some as her rowing in behind a Burnham leadership bid.
“We must show we understand the scale of change the moment calls for – that means bringing our best players into Parliament – and embracing the type of agenda that has been successful at a local level, rather than reaching back to an agenda and politics that has failed people,” she said.
“These are the fights we need to have, and the change in direction we need to see. Policy tweaks will not fix the fundamental challenges facing our country. This government needs, at pace, to put measures in place that make people’s lives tangibly better, while fixing the foundations of a system rigged against them.
“The Prime Minister must now meet the moment and set out the change our country needs. Change our economic agenda to prioritise making people better off, change how we run our party so that all voices are listened to, and change how we do politics.
“Labour exists to make working people better off. That is not happening fast enough, and it needs to change – now.”
A Labour MP on the ‘soft left’ of the party told PoliticsHome: “She’s right but also wrong. The PM is a busted flush and needs to go. We need change but Keir Starmer cannot deliver it.”
They added: “I would read it like she is waiting for Burnham to come back.”
An MP on the Labour left said: “If Andy is blocked by the timetable, things will shift. The spanner is Ed Miliband and I’m unclear how that will play out. If Tribune back Ed, she’ll struggle.”
A different ‘soft left’ Labour MP, who backs Burnham, said: “She is keeping her powder dry at the moment. I suspect she will move if Wes does.”
They also described Starmer’s expressed desire in a new Observer interview to continue as PM for 10 years as “a sure sign that it’s over”, adding: “We’ve entered the delusional phase.”
Although Health Secretary Wes Streeting was reported by the Telegraph today as having told Starmer that he is preparing his case to be the next prime minister, a source close to Streeting told PoliticsHome that this relates to an old report about him making preparations in case Starmer’s premiership fell apart.
While neither Rayner nor Streeting have so far made their move, north London MP and former minister Catherine West has reiterated her willingness to launch a leadership challenge if the Cabinet does not take action on Monday.
She told the BBC on Sunday morning: “I will hear what the Prime Minister’s got to say tomorrow and, then if I’m still dissatisfied, I will put out my email to the Parliamentary Labour Party, asking for names.”
Starmer backers are pinning their hopes on a speech by the Prime Minister on Monday to turn things around. PoliticsHome understands that other outwardly loyal Labour MPs are waiting to see what is said and how it lands before voicing their own views on the future of the leadership.
On Sunday Josh Simons, a former minister who previously led Starmerite organisation Labour Together, added his name to the list of MPs calling on Starmer to be replaced.
“I do not believe the Prime Minister can rise to this moment. He has lost the country. He should take control of the situation by overseeing an orderly transition to a new prime minister,” Simons said.
In the statement, Rayner set out her priorities for government, including immediate action to cut costs for households, more sectoral bargaining, a plan to end freehold for good, enhanced devolution and further planning reforms.