Angela Rayner has issued a stark “last chance” warning to Labour after the party’s disastrous local election results, urging the Prime Minister to allow Andy Burnham back into Parliament and warning that the party’s current approach is failing working people.
The Ashton-under-Lyne MP, who served as Deputy Prime Minister until September 2025, broke her silence on X following Labour’s heavy losses in Thursday’s local elections. “Our party has suffered a historic defeat,” she wrote. “Many good Labour colleagues have lost their seats despite working hard for those they represented. We have lost good Labour administrations and lost the chance for more. What we are doing isn’t working, and it needs to change. This may be our last chance. The Labour Party must now live up to our name: we must be the party of working people.”
Voter concerns laid bare
Rayner listed the specific issues voters had raised with Labour on the doorstep, arguing that the cost of living has driven people “to turn to populists and nationalists”. She said living standards were “barely higher than they were a decade and a half ago” and that people feel hopeless, believing “the cost of living crisis will never end” while oil and gas companies “use global instability to post record profits”.
The UK has been experiencing a cost‑of‑living crisis since late 2021, with prices for essentials such as energy and food rising faster than wages. A study by the New Economics Foundation predicted that 30 million people in the UK would be unable to afford a decent standard of living by 2024. As of October 2024, 7 million low‑income households were going without essentials, and 5.4 million could not afford enough food.
Rayner highlighted how Labour had lost support across its traditional heartlands. “In London, we lost young people who fear they will never afford a home. In my patch and across the north, we lost working people whose wages are too low and costs too high. In Scotland and Wales, people do not currently see Labour as the answer. We are in danger of becoming a party of the well-off, not working people.”
She also slammed the appointment of Peter Mandelson as US Ambassador, describing it as evidence of “a toxic culture of cronyism”. Mandelson, a former Labour minister, was appointed by Sir Keir Starmer in December 2024 despite long‑standing questions about his associations with Jeffrey Epstein and previous ministerial resignations. He was forced to resign in February 2026 after the Epstein files revealed his close friendship with the financier and allegations of passing on market‑sensitive government information, leading to the resignation of Starmer’s chief of staff, Morgan McSweeney, and the firing of senior civil servant Olly Robbins. Starmer had promised before the general election to “restore standards in public life” and implement a “crackdown on cronyism”.
The local elections on 7 May 2026 saw Labour lose a net 166 council seats and control of at least eight councils, with Reform UK and the Green Party making significant gains, particularly in traditional Labour strongholds. The results have intensified questions about the Prime Minister’s leadership, with some MPs calling for him to step down. Former minister Catherine West has announced she would challenge for the leadership if the cabinet did not act imminently. Under Labour rules, a leadership challenge requires nominations from 20% of MPs – currently 81.
Rayner pointed to international examples, citing Spain and Canada as countries that “have shown that economies can grow and people can thrive when governments stay true to labour and social democratic values and put people first”. She argued Britain needed to learn from them.
The push for Burnham’s return
In a striking intervention, Rayner also called for the return of Andy Burnham, the Mayor of Greater Manchester, to Parliament – a figure widely seen as a potential challenger to Sir Keir Starmer. “This is bigger than personalities, but it is time to acknowledge that blocking Andy Burnham was a mistake,” she said. “We must show we understand the scale of change the moment calls for – that means bringing our best players into Parliament – and embracing the type of agenda that has been successful at a local level, rather than reaching back to an agenda and politics that has failed people.”
Burnham had been reported to be planning a return to Westminster “within weeks” by identifying seats where MPs might step aside for a by-election, with his supporters aiming to avoid a formal leadership challenge. However, Labour’s National Executive Committee blocked him from standing in the Gorton and Denton by‑election in early 2026, citing concerns about the costs of new mayoral elections and the potential threat from Reform UK. Rayner’s statement signals a belief that the party’s leadership made a strategic error in excluding him.
She also released policy proposals for economic renewal as part of her intervention. “These are the fights we need to have, and the change in direction we need to see,” she wrote. “Policy tweaks will not fix the fundamental challenges facing our country. This government needs, at pace, to put measures in place that make people’s lives tangibly better, while fixing the foundations of a system rigged against them. Change our economic agenda to prioritise making people better off, change how we run our party so that all voices are listened to, and change how we do politics. Labour exists to make working people better off. That is not happening fast enough, and it needs to change — now.”
