Angela Rayner has blasted Keir Starmer with a “last chance” warning and has urged the Prime Minister to allow Andy Burnham back into Parliament.
The former Deputy PM took to X to speak out for the first time following Labour’s disastrous results in the local elections on Thursday.
The Ashton-under-Lyne MP said: “Our party has suffered a historic defeat.
“Many good Labour colleagues have lost their seats despite working hard for those they represented. We have lost good Labour administrations and lost the chance for more.
“What we are doing isn’t working, and it needs to change. This may be our last chance.
“The Labour Party must now live up to our name: we must be the party of working people.”
She listed some of the issues she claims voters have told Labour on the doorstep.
These include the cost of living which Ms Rayner argues has caused voters to “turn to populists and nationalists”.
Angela Rayner has said it was a mistake by the PM to block Andy Burnham’s return to Parliament
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GETTYShe added: “Living standards are barely higher than they were a decade and a half ago. People feel hopeless – that the cost of living crisis will never end, and now they see oil and gas companies use global instability to post record profits.”
The ex Deputy PM mentioned countries such as Spain and Canada that “have shown that economies can grow and people can thrive when governments stay true to labour and social democratic values and put people first” and that Britain needs to “learn from that”.
Ms Rayner continued on to highlight how Labour struggled in former traditional strongholds across the UK.
She said: “In London, we lost young people who fear they will never afford a home.
“In my patch and across the north, we lost working people whose wages are too low and costs too high.
“In Scotland and Wales, people do not currently see Labour as the answer.
“We are in danger of becoming a party of the well-off, not working people.”
She then went on to slam the appointment of Peter Mandelson, describing it as showing “a toxic culture of cronyism”.
Angela Rayner has seemingly thrown her support behind Andy Burnham
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GETTYMs Rayner even went so far as to call for the return of Andy Burnham into Parliament – a man often cited as a potential challenger to Sir Keir Starmer’s premiership.
The 46-year-old said: “This is bigger than personalities, but it is time to acknowledge that blocking Andy Burnham was a mistake.
“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.”
Ms Rayner signed off her post by urging the Prime Minister to “meet the moment and set out the change our country needs”.
She wrote: “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.”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.”
