Allies believe the public will have some sympathy for Rayner over the circumstances of her resignation, as her ambition had been to keep her son out of the public eye. A second MP allied to Rayner said her team “don’t seem at all fazed or panicked” by what HMRC will uncover. “The mood is that they need HMRC to expedite this so that she can pay what she owes and put it behind her,” they said.
But trying to move before HMRC makes a decision would be nightmarish. One government official said: “Angela would get 80 MPs [needed for a nomination] easily but she just couldn’t do it with the HMRC thing hanging over her.”
The long-time ally quoted above said: “Why are HMRC taking so long to do it? It’s easy to get into conspiracy theories, isn’t it?”
Even if she is cleared by HMRC, it would put Downing Street’s independent adviser on ministerial standards, Laurie Magnus, in an awkward position. He ruled that Rayner had breached the ministerial code in September and he remains in post until December 2027. Magnus would be answerable to whoever is prime minister.
“If she was elected with a clear majority of Labour MPs, I wouldn’t have thought the advisor would rush into difficult, sensitive territory,” said Alistair Graham, the former chairman of the Committee on Standards in Public Life.
But Graham added: “He would have a discussion — ‘first of all, do you want me to stay in office, or do you want to appoint your own person?’ And then he might say, ‘well, there is the outstanding issue of my previous decision about your behavior.’ I don’t know quite where that conversation might lead to.”