Sir Keir Starmer is desperately fighting to save Angela Rayner after the deputy prime minister was forced to admit she failed to pay a crushing £40,000 tax bill on her second home in a shocking revelation that has rocked Downing Street.
The embattled deputy prime minister has referred herself to the ethics watchdog after finally conceding that she had not paid a stamp duty surcharge on the purchase of an eye-watering £800,000 seaside flat on the south coast. In a devastating blow, she revealed she had even considered resigning over the explosive matter.
Rayner’s weeks of denials crumble under mounting pressure
For weeks, Rayner has defiantly claimed that she did nothing wrong when she snapped up the luxury property in Hove, East Sussex, and repeatedly insisted with absolute certainty that she had paid the full amount of tax owed. The news comes after it was revealed Rayner ‘used disabled son’s NHS compensation’ to buy seaside flat.
However, the walls came crashing down when she was forced to commission urgent new legal advice last week after relentless scrutiny of her tax affairs and growing questions over her controversial claim that the plush flat was her main home, rather than her constituency home in Greater Manchester.
Legal bombshell leaves Rayner ‘devastated’ and facing resignation
The devastating new legal opinion concluded on Wednesday morning that she should have paid the additional stamp duty in a crushing blow to her credibility. A shell-shocked Rayner confessed she was “devastated” by the damning finding and refused to rule out resigning if Sir Laurie Magnus, the independent adviser on ministerial standards, found that she had broken the rules.
Her political future now hangs by a thread on her desperate claim that she was told by a lawyer when she bought the property in Hove in May that she did not need to pay the additional stamp duty. Magnus is expected to grill her in the coming days and deliver his explosive verdict next week.
Revenue & Customs probe threatens £12,000 fine bombshell
Rayner is also facing a separate investigation by HM Revenue & Customs in another hammer blow, and could be slapped with a crippling fine of as much as £12,000 if she is found to have been “careless” in her tax affairs.
Despite mounting concern among Labour MPs, including her own allies, about the appalling optics of having a housing secretary who failed to pay the correct amount of tax on the purchase of a house, Starmer is fighting tooth and nail to save her.
Starmer ally reveals desperate bid to save deputy PM
A senior ally of Starmer revealed he was “determined” to save her and did not want to hand his critics a prized “scalp”. They said he had genuine sympathy for her precarious position. “He wants to do everything he can,” the ally confided. However, they acknowledged that if Magnus’s report was sufficiently damning, he would have no choice but to brutally sack Rayner.
In a show of public support, Starmer told the Commons that he was “very proud to sit alongside” Rayner and said she had gone “over and above” in setting out details of her tax affairs.
Health Secretary claims Rayner made ‘genuine mistake’
Wes Streeting, the health secretary, went even further on Wednesday afternoon by claiming that Rayner had made a “genuine mistake” and that her departure would be an “absolute travesty”. The defensive lines were thought to have been cleared by No 10.
Downing Street was forced to deny that Starmer had misled the public on Monday when he claimed that Rayner was the victim of a briefing campaign and that her critics were making a “mistake”.
At that point, No 10 was said to be fully aware that Rayner had commissioned independent legal advice because she was concerned that she had not paid the correct amount of tax.
Hypocrisy claims dog Labour’s attack dog
Rayner has built much of her fierce political career on savagely attacking the Tories over claims of hypocrisy, including on tax. She repeatedly thundered it was “one rule for them, another for the rest of us” when they were in power.
However, Rayner’s allies have conceded that she faces a brutal uphill battle to keep her job, especially if the inquiry found she had broken the ministerial code. “I don’t know how she can survive,” said one. “This will be an open wound. The opposition will keep picking at it.”
Another said Rayner had “flown close to the sun twice now”, after questions were raised about her tax affairs last year.
Rayner’s emotional confession of devastation
A visibly shaken Rayner said she was devastated that she had inadvertently paid too little tax. “I’ve been in shock, really, because I thought I’d done everything properly, and I relied on the advice that I received,” she told Sky News. “I’m devastated because I’ve always upheld the rules and always have done. And always felt proud to do that.”