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lite.cnn.com - on gopher - inofficial
ARTICLE VIEW:
UK Deputy PM Angela Rayner resigns, throwing embattled Labour
government into more disarray
By Christian Edwards and Max Foster, CNN
Updated:
12:30 PM EDT, Fri September 5, 2025
Source: CNN
Britain’s Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner has resigned following
a scandal over her failure to pay the correct amount of property tax,
adding to the of the country’s struggling center-left government.
Rayner’s departure is another headache for the United Kingdom’s
Keir Starmer, and deprives his cabinet of one of its brightest
political stars.
In a letter addressed to Starmer on Friday, Rayner said that she was
stepping down as Britain’s deputy prime minister and housing
minister, as well as the deputy leader of the Labour Party.
Despite securing a landslide election victory in July 2024, Labour is
now facing a rising challenge from the upstart anti-immigration party,
which currently leads national opinion polls and is holding a national
conference in Birmingham on Friday.
Her resignation pushed UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer to undertake a
significant reshuffle of his cabinet later Friday. David Lammy, who had
been serving as the UK’s foreign minister, was appointed as
Rayner’s replacement as well as justice secretary, according to
Downing Street.
Yvette Cooper, who had been serving as home secretary, has taken up
Lammy’s former role as foreign minister, Downing Street said.
Meanwhile, Shabana Mahmood, who had previously held the role of justice
secretary, has become the new home secretary.
Rayner had been fighting for her political survival after it emerged
that she had not paid enough property taxes on an apartment in Hove on
England’s southern coast, which she bought earlier this year.
Rayner claimed her mistake was unwitting and based on poor legal
advice. Yet opposition parties and right-wing British tabloids quickly
labeled her a hypocrite, due to her history of mauling Conservative
ministers in the previous government over similar “sleazy”
incidents. Her actions soon snowballed into a national scandal.
Starmer initially stood up for his deputy, but his support grew more
anemic day by day. Defending Rayner became ever more challenging, given
that Britain is wracked by a housing crisis and that Labour is
considering raising taxes, including on property. Critics said her
position had become untenable.
In her letter on Friday, Rayner wrote that media scrutiny had meant
that staying in her post was “unbearable,” writing: “While I
rightly expect proper scrutiny on me and my life, my family did not
choose to have their private lives interrogated and exposed so
publicly.”
Rayner’s resignation has cost Labour one of its most talented
politicians, whose forthright style, working-class roots and strong
northern English accent helped bridge divisions within the
parliamentary Labour party.
Rayner grew up poor on the outskirts of Manchester and became a mother
at 16. Before entering politics, she trained as a carer for older
people and worked as a trade union representative. Her earthy,
extroverted manner contrasts with the more reserved, standoffish
Starmer, a former human rights lawyer.
“For a teenage mum from a council estate in Stockport to serve as the
highest level of government has been the honor of my life,” Rayner
wrote on Friday. “I’ve always known that politics changes lives
because it changed mine.”
Used to politicians who are overly polished and often educated at
expensive private schools, young Labour voters have delighted in
Rayner’s “realness.” She has been filmed dancing at a London
Pride march and partying in a DJ booth in Ibiza. Recently, she was
pictured vaping while in an inflatable canoe off the beach in Brighton.
But Rayner’s apartment near that beach became the flashpoint for the
scandal. When Rayner bought the property in neighboring Hove for
£800,000 (nearly $1.1 million) in May this year, she said she had been
advised that she did not need to pay the tax – known as stamp duty
– which is higher on second homes. Rather than paying the higher
rate, which would have amounted to £70,000 (£94,000), she paid
£30,000 ($40,000).
Rayner said she did so because she had already sold her stake in her
Greater Manchester constituency home and put it into a trust for her
children. That trust was funded from a medical award after her son was
left with life-long disabilities after he was born prematurely.
Some tax experts voiced modest sympathy for Rayner, given how
complicated the UK tax system is.
“The tax system is a mess, stamp duty particularly messy, and the
higher rate for additional properties beyond messy,” Dan Neidle, the
founder of Tax Policy Associates, wrote on X. “So, I’m generally
forgiving of people who make mistakes.”
But Neidle conceded that Rayner had made her position more difficult
given how, during Labour’s years in opposition, she often hounded
Conservative politicians over their own tax affairs.
In 2018 she accused then-health minister Jeremy Hunt of “sleaze”
for using a “Tory tax loophole” to save nearly £100,000 in stamp
duty when buying seven apartments. She also called for the resignation
of Nadhim Zahawi, the former chancellor, after he confirmed he paid
nearly £5 million ($6.7 million) to authorities to settle his tax
affairs.
Although some analysts have suggested Starmer may quietly be pleased
with the resignation of his main rival and potential successor, the
toppling of Rayner caps off what has been a dreadful summer for Labour,
in which the party has lost more ground in the polls to the insurgent
Reform UK.
In a letter written to Rayner Friday, Starmer said he was “very
sad” that her time spent in his government has “ended in this
way.”
“Although I believe you have reached the right decision, it was a
decision which I know is very painful for you,” he wrote, adding that
she has been a “trusted colleague and true friend for many years.”
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