Sunak's Lifeline? - Keir Starmer and Angela Rayner's shocking scandals

The Labour party's reputation could take a huge hit, with both Starmer and Rayner under investigation.

The Labour party are in deep trouble this week, with Keir Starmer and his deputy, Angela Rayner, both embroiled in scandal.

The consequences if either are found guilty of their respective misdemeanours are deadly serious, and could place doubt on their election victory, which for the last 2 years has looked all but certain.

This could be a lifeline for Rishi Sunak and the Conservatives, and they would be foolish not exploit Labour’s scandal for their own gain.

Starmer

Following the chaotic Gaza ceasefire vote in February, MPs were quick to accuse Starmer of pressuring the Speaker to defy parliamentary convention.

Days later he admitted that he urged the speaker to consider Labour’s motion. 58 MPs have now signed a petition calling for a privileges committee investigation into his conduct.

The Speaker’s actions, allowing Labour’s motion to be considered, on an opposition day for the SNP, saved Starmer from a potentially costly backbench rebellion.

The last vote on Gaza split the Labour party, with 56 MPs defying the whips, forcing Starmer to sack 8 frontbenchers. It seemed all too convenient that a repeat of this was prevented by Hoyle’s bizarre decision.

Read more on the Gaza ceasefire vote here

Tory and SNP MPs were rightly furious, and rumours quickly emerged that Starmer had pressured the Speaker in private, and even threatened to withdraw support from him after the election if he didn’t allow Labour’s motion to be debated.

The Speaker is supposed to be an impartial actor free from party bias, and an investigation is understandable, given the seriousness of the allegations.

If found guilty, Keir Starmer could be suspended from parliament. This is obviously unlikely, but if it were to happen, Starmer would have to resign as Labour leader, which could blow the 2024 election wide-open.

The petition has been signed by mostly SNP MPs, and calls for the privileges committee to investigate "whether undue pressure was placed on Mr Speaker in relation to the decision on selection and calling of amendments".

Penny Mordaunt, the government’s Leader of the Commons, is likely to support the petition too. She has the power to timetable proceedings in Parliament, and could thus grant a debate on this issue.

This situation could develop further once Parliament returns after Easter Recess, and could be the biggest scare of Starmer’s premiership so far. If there is anything that could put Labour’s inevitable election victory in jeopardy, this scandal could be it.

Rayner

Angela Rayner, Labour’s Deputy Leader, has been under fire in recent weeks over the sale of a council house she owned in Stockport, and how she may have avoided paying capital gains tax on the property.

After being initially cleared of any wrongdoing, the police are reassessing their decision, and look set to reinvestigate Rayner after it was apparent that relevant witnesses hadn’t been questioned, and that crucial documents relating to the property had been overlooked.

The issue centred around whether the Stockport house was her ‘primary address’. Rayner says she paid council taxes and bills in Stockport, and thus it was her primary address, despite it appearing that she lived elsewhere, at her ex-husband’s home.

This is what both sets of neighbours are claiming. They say she is telling ‘porkies’, and that her brother lived at the ex-council house, and that she did in fact live with her husband.

If Rayner has wrongfully avoided paying capital gains tax, she could owe around ￡1500, hence the police investigation.

The police investigation into Boris Johnson’s Downing Street parties became a scandal that dominated politics for months. Just like Johnson, Rayner now finds herself under police scrutiny, but has refused to put the ‘personal tax advice’ she has received into the public domain.

Starmer has backed his deputy, saying ‘she has not broken any rules, she has in fact taken legal and tax advice which has satisfied her, and us, and me about the position’.

If Rayner is found guilty, she would have to sacked by Starmer, and the public would lose a lot of faith in Labour’s integrity. The Conservatives aren’t known for having the best reputation for honesty, and these allegations would reinforce the growing perception that Labour are no different.

As the Nick Robinson comically said on BBC Radio 4, Rayner would not stand for Rayner’s excuses if Rayner was a Tory. She has spent years criticising Tory politicians for dishonesty, and yet it appears she is just like them.

Conclusions

With the 2 most senior Labour politicians under investigation for serious misdemeanours, the party will fear the disastrous implications for their public reputation.

It may have happened already, with YouGov’s latest poll showing their support has dropped by 4% in the last week. This could be a natural variation, or a sign of things to come, especially if either Starmer or Rayner are found guilty.

At the very least it will damage the party’s reputation. The worst case scenario could be that both are forced to resign, and Labour’s seemingly inevitable electoral victory is squandered. The latter is unlikely, especially with polling guru John Curtice predicting that Labour have a 99% chance of winning the next election.

2024 has not seen the revival Sunak will have hoped for. The boats are still coming, the economy is still stagnant, and his party is crumbling around him. These revelations are a political open-goal for the Conservatives, and if they want any hope of preventing electoral wipe-out in 2024, they need to exploit these two scandals as much as possible.

Could this be a lifeline for Rishi Sunak?

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