Angela Rayner isn’t even in cabinet – but she’ll still ruin Britain | Personal Finance | Finance

Angela Rayner’s time in office was never quiet. As deputy PM and former Housing Secretary, she courted unions, hammered landlords, abused Tories and raved and vaped for Britain. She clashed with PM Keir Starmer and risked a Labour civil war by demanding even more tax hikes than Chancellor Rachel Reeves was willing to deliver. And that’s before we get to her tax dodge. 

Rayner went because she’d avoided paying a £40,000 stamp duty bill on a luxury £800,000 seaside apartment in Hove. She fought her expulsion from the cabinet to the last, but ultimately had to go. It wasn’t a good look from someone so keen to hike taxes on the rest of us.

I wrote at the time that Rayner would return with a vengeance, and she will. It’s only a matter of time.

But even while out, her influence on the Labour Party lives on. Activists adore her and defend her legacy to the last. Her fingerprints are also all over a controversial piece of legislation, the Employment Rights Bill. That’s coming our way soon, and I’m not sure the economy can survive this on top of everything else Labour has thrown at it.

Rayner shaped the bill before leaving office, and Labour is pushing it forward, unions and hard-left MPs cheering in the background. It’s a ticking time bomb for smaller firms, and a charter for union barons and the workshy.

The bill threatens to impose costly new obligations, open the door to vexatious complaints, and push up company legal bills through endless employment tribunals.

Insane day one rights for new staff have been watered down but only after inflicting fresh humiliation on PM Keir Starmer, who would love to water the bill down further but daren’t.

Businesses are already buckling under Rachel Reeves’s tax blitz. Unemployment has rocketed from 4.1% to 5.1% on her watch, close to European highs.

It’d be tempted to call Reeves a one-woman economic wrecking ball, but now we’ve got two of them swinging away. And one isn’t even in power.

Reeves remains in cabinet, still working flat out to bring the economy to its knees. Rayner has gone one better. She’s doing damage even while on gardening leave.

Estimates suggest her Employment Rights Bill will add £5billion to business costs. Crucially, it will also deter firms from hiring, because staff will be so much harder to dismiss if they’re not up to the job. Serial complainers will be empowered, legal headaches will mount, and unemployment will hit the young hardest.

Vulnerable workers, from those with mental health issues to people with criminal records, will struggle to get a fair hearing as employers refuse to take any chances.

If Rayner can do all that while out of power, imagine the damage she’ll do when she returns. Most observers expect her to take a senior role, possibly Home Secretary, Chancellor or even PM if Keir Starmer is ousted.

And when she does, the country should brace itself. If she can create such a noise out of office, just imagine what she’ll do when she’s back in.