The key quotes from Rayner’s speech last night at Mainstream’s spring reception in Westminster:
“As a party and a movement, we cannot hide. We cannot just go through the motions in the face of decline. There’s no safe ground for us, and we’re running out of time. The change that people wanted so desperately to see needs to be seen. It needs to be felt, and we have to show that it’s a Labour government that will deliver it…”
“… we have to come together in the face of division of hate and make sure that the Labour Party represents the ordinary working people of this country. And I’m in there with you, so I can’t wait to get involved with you.”
Starmer wasn’t the only one in the firing line. She also took aim at Shabana Mahmood’s changes to indefinite leave to remain:
“If we suddenly change that, it pulls the rug from under those that have planned their lives and commitments, and they’re contributing to our economy and to our society. That would not just be bad policy, but a breach of trust… It’s un-British.”
Mainstream’s mission is to prevent Labour’s “clear drift to the right” under Starmer. It is also backed by Andy Burnham. As everyone fully expected, Rayner has parked tanks on Starmer’s lawn. Now, about those taxes…
Lucy Powell on LBC, asked by Tom Swarbrick for her reaction to Labour MP Samantha Niblett’s call for a ‘summer of sex’ debate in Parliament: “I personally don’t own any sex toys, but each to their own… I’m not really sure that’s the right place for it, no.”