Rayner’s stance leaves future hanging by a thread

It does not take much effort to imagine how Angela Rayner would have responded if a Conservative or Reform MP had behaved as she had. If an MP for another party had been accused of “dodging” stamp duty on the purchase of a flat, denied it for more than a week, and then admitted that they had indeed underpaid tax, she would have been noisy in condemnation.

In her own case, she seems to expect sympathy. She has admitted that she made a mistake, but tried to shift the blame to her lawyers, claiming that she had relied on advice that turned out to be incorrect. This may be a mitigating factor, but ultimately, she must be responsible for her own dealings, according to the The Independent.

Her conduct has been disappointing, whatever her excuse for failing to pay the tax that was due. The Independent has defended Ms Rayner in the past from attacks that we felt were the product of snobbery and sexism towards a strong working-class woman.

But on this occasion, the press has performed a public service in asking legitimate questions about the deputy prime minister’s purchase of a flat in Hove. Ms Rayner might otherwise have got away with failing to pay the right amount of tax, and the country would have been none the wiser about it.

The deputy prime minister hopes to avoid censure by Sir Laurie Magnus, the prime minister’s standards adviser, by claiming to have made an honest mistake. But even if Sir Laurie clears her, her reputation may have suffered irreversible damage, and it is hard to now see her as a successor to Sir Keir Starmer.

For the prime minister, it is double-edged. He may be privately pleased to have his deputy and rival taken down a peg or two, but ultimately her embarrassment is bad for him and bad for his government – whether she stays or goes.

He came to office promising higher standards in public life, having made quite a meal in opposition of the various misdemeanours of Conservative ministers — Jeremy Hunt and Nadhim Zahawi among them. His deputy has failed to reach those standards.

Sir Keir defended Ms Rayner at Prime Minister’s Questions. “I am very proud to sit alongside a deputy prime minister who is building 1.5 million homes, overseeing the biggest upgrade to workers’ rights in a generation and who has come from a working-class background to be deputy prime minister,” he said.

But on the substance of the issue, he said merely that “she has explained her personal circumstances in detail”, and that she had done the “right thing” in referring herself to Sir Laurie.

Sir Keir, the lawyer, is obviously reserving judgment in order to allow the due process of Sir Laurie’s investigation, but two other factors weigh in the balance against Ms Rayner.

She has been involved in convoluted explanations for her property arrangements before. She was accused of avoiding capital gains tax on her former council house when she sold it before becoming an MP in 2015, and although no wrongdoing was established, it should have been obvious to her that any future property transactions would have to be absolutely above suspicion.

The other factor is that she is the secretary of state for housing. She is not responsible for tax policy, but she has ministerial responsibility for policies – such as the higher rate of stamp duty on purchasing a second home – designed to encourage wider home ownership.

Clearly, we must wait for Sir Laurie to establish precisely how Ms Rayner came to pay less tax than she should have done as a result of what she called her “complex living arrangements”. But in the meantime, her position as deputy prime minister and housing secretary is hanging by a thread.