\n<\/p>\n
Angela Rayner has urged Labour colleagues to \u201cstep up\u201d and make the case for why the party should be in power as the government attempts to draw a line under a tumultuous first year in office and shift towards a more upbeat approach.<\/p>\n
The deputy prime minister urged Labour MPs to focus on the party\u2019s achievements over the last 12 months rather than always thinking about failures, saying they should all be \u201cmessage carriers\u201d for what had been done well.<\/p>\n
But she said there were big challenges ahead, with changes in areas such as infrastructure investment and planning going to take years to bear fruit. \u201cThese things take time to lead in. That\u2019s the challenge with politics. Everybody wants something ma\u00f1ana. It\u2019s like, gotta have it immediately.\u201d<\/p>\n
In an interview with the Guardian as MPs prepared to break for the summer recess, Rayner also said she was unafraid of Nigel Farage, that tough action against rebellious Labour MPs was \u201cjustified\u201d and that fixing the \u201cawful\u201d Send system for children was an urgent priority.<\/p>\n
She said it was a \u201cmoral mission\u201d for Labour to bring down child poverty, she would feel personally wounded if the government did not hit its 1.5m new homes target and that it was determined to \u201cbreak the doom loop\u201d of low economic growth and high taxes suffered for years.<\/p>\n
However, speaking in her office in the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, Rayner made clear she expected her colleagues, from Keir Starmer down, to do a better job of arguing for what they believed in. \u201cWe all have to step up and make that case. It\u2019s the job of all of us in the wider Labour movement,\u201d she said, citing achievements such as falling NHS waiting lists, funding increases for housing and rising wages.<\/p>\n
\u201cI often go to Labour fundraisers and joke that the Tories will do 4% of their manifesto, and then go on about that 4% as if they\u2019ve delivered the whole lot. In our Labour movement, we\u2019ll do 96% of it, but we\u2019ll go on about the 4% that we never managed to achieve.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a mindset that we have \u2026 We\u2019re always thinking about what we didn\u2019t get, as opposed to all the huge achievements that we\u2019re making. Our whole movement is message carriers. And if we\u2019re not going to talk about these huge achievements, then who is?\u201d<\/p>\n
Labour has characterised Reform UK as its main opposition at the next election, even though it has just four MPs. Rayner said they had to be \u201cheld to account\u201d for making \u201cwild promises\u201d to the public they would not be able to deliver on, calling Farage a \u201csnake oil salesman\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cPolitics can make a real difference to people\u2019s lives, but it takes time to change, to bring about that fundamental change that people are so desperate to see. That\u2019s what this Labour government is doing,\u201d she said. \u201cIt\u2019s not short-termism on the back of a fag packet, on some billboard. It\u2019s actually the fundamental reforms that will get Britain back on track \u2026 instead of people feeling at the moment like everything is broken and nothing can be fixed.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/span>Angela Rayner in her office at the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government.<\/span> Photograph: David Levene\/The Guardian<\/p>\n Rayner defended the decision to strip the Labour whip from four \u201cpersistent\u201d rebel MPs, even though No 10 had said it would try to improve relations with backbenchers after they forced it into a major U-turn over welfare cuts. \u201cI think it\u2019s justified. If you\u2019re constantly organising against your Labour government then that\u2019s a whipping issue for the chief whip, and that\u2019s as old as time,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n But she acknowledged the government had to find ways of giving MPs \u201copportunities to air concerns\u201d and be part of the collective decision-making process. Labour MPs are concerned that ministers will approach plans for children\u2019s special educational needs and disabilities (Send) in the same way as they did changes to welfare, which were presented as a cost-saving move.<\/p>\n But Rayner, who has two children who have been through the Send process, said the system was \u201cawful\u201d for parents and had to be fixed, adding that she knew the government needed to bring families, schools and MPs with them on the difficult path to change.<\/p>\n Her own department has an additional interest because councils, which provide much of the support, were granted two further years until March 2028 to keep Send deficits off their books, giving them a strict deadline.<\/p>\n \u201cCan we do it in the time? We have to, because so many young people are being let down at the moment, because the system is not catching people\u2019s needs early on. That system is awful for parents.<\/p>\n skip past newsletter promotion<\/p>\n Our morning email breaks down the key stories of the day, telling you what\u2019s happening and why it matters<\/p>\n Privacy Notice: <\/strong>Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.<\/span><\/p>\n after newsletter promotion<\/p>\n \u201cI was in the system for a long time \u2026 Parents who are trapped in it are constantly, for years, fighting to get their child support that they need. We\u2019ve got to fix this. Often we\u2019re spending huge sums of money and we\u2019re still not delivering the outcomes for those young people.\u201d<\/p>\n Labour MPs are also desperate for the government to deliver on its pledge to tackle child poverty, with Starmer understood to be keen to lift the two-child benefit cap if affordable, although that has been made harder because of the welfare U-turn.<\/p>\n Rayner said it was a \u201cmoral mission\u201d and \u201cabsolutely critical\u201d for a Labour government to bring down child poverty, but despite experts suggesting scrapping the cap would be the most cost-effective way to do so, she said there was \u201cno single lever\u201d to address problem.<\/p>\n She has announced a near doubling of government spending on affordable housing in England, up to \u00a340bn of grants over 10 years, and bringing its target to build 1.5m new homes by 2029 closer. She said she would feel wounded if the target was not hit, even though experts say it will be extremely difficult. \u201cI would be wounded, even though it is a real stretch target. Everyone says it\u2019s really difficult to get there, but I\u2019m determined to,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Just months after Rayner urged Rachel Reeves to consider a series of wealth tax rises, underscoring unease over the chancellor\u2019s tight spending plans, she said the country needed to get out of the \u201cdoom loop\u201d of low growth and high taxes it had seen under the Conservatives.<\/p>\n While she refused to be drawn on whether it was inevitable that taxes would have to rise this autumn, when asked about her leaked memo to the chancellor, she said the country \u201ccan\u2019t continue\u201d as it is. \u201cI think we will get there. But we can\u2019t continue on this doom loop of, you know, low, low growth and high taxes, we have to find a way through this,\u201d she added, highlighting capital investment and trade deals which both supported the economy.<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s how you grow the economy in the long run, and where people feel better off as a result of it. That\u2019s the turnaround that we\u2019re doing that the previous government didn\u2019t do, and why we\u2019ve been in this constant doom loop.\u201d<\/p>\n Before Donald Trump\u2019s second state visit to the UK this autumn, Rayner, who has previously called the US president \u201ca buffoon\u201d who had \u201cno place in the White House\u201d, said she respected the mandate of elected politicians but was prepared to \u201cchallenge respectfully\u201d.<\/p>\n A week after Unite the trade union voted to suspend her membership and rethink its ties with the Labour party over the Birmingham bin strikes, Rayner said that while she was proud of her trade union roots, she answered to working people and her constituents. \u201cThat\u2019s my test. Not what a general secretary says.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Angela Rayner has urged Labour colleagues to \u201cstep up\u201d and make the case for why the party should be in power as the government attempts to draw a line under a tumultuous first year in office and shift towards a more upbeat approach. The deputy prime minister urged Labour MPs to focus on the party\u2019s<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":11383,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48],"tags":[4739,1844,134,1664,3621,1207,272],"class_list":{"0":"post-11382","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-politics","8":"tag-angela","9":"tag-case","10":"tag-labour","11":"tag-power","12":"tag-rayner","13":"tag-step","14":"tag-tells"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11382","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11382"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11382\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/11383"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11382"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11382"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11382"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}