Labour must 'win or die' says Angela Rayner as she makes deputy leader pitch and backs Rebecca Long Bailey
4 min read
The Labour Party must "win or die", Angela Rayner has warned as she unveiled her pitch to become its new deputy leader.
The Shadow Education Secretary told supporters at a speech in Stockport that the party's electoral coalition is "broken" in the wake of its historic defeat last month, and urged them to back her friend Rebecca Long Bailey as leader.
Ms Rayner is the fourth MP to enter the contest, with Shadow Justice Secretary Richard Burgon, Shadow Equalities Secretary Dawn Butler and Shadow Europe Minister Khalid Mahmood all declaring their intention to run.
The party's only remaining Scottish MP Ian Murray is expected to announce his own deputy leadership bid on Tuesday.
Launching her own bid, Ms Rayner confirmed she would be backing Ms Long Bailey, her Shadow Cabinet colleague and flatmate, in her quest to succeed Jeremy Corbyn as Labour leader.
She told supporters: "I will be quite straightforward: I will be voting for my friend Rebecca Long Bailey if she stands for the leadership.
"But our collective leadership must go far wider than simply who is elected to these positions. It is why I want us to have an honest, but friendly, conversation with each other. And at the end of it, a united party that starts winning elections for us all."
Hitting out at successive Labour leaders for neglecting the party's traditional heartlands, Ms Rayner told supporters: "The gap between generations has never been starker. Our coalition, the foundation of our party, is broken.
"This crisis has been a long time coming and we’ve kept avoiding it. It is the biggest challenge in our history."
The Shadow Education Secretary went on to pitch the next five years as "the fight of our lives" for the party, and called on to do more than simply switch leaders to reconnect with voters who deserted Labour in favour of Boris Johnson.
She said: "The quick fix of a new leader will not be enough. We must rethink and renew our purpose and how we convince the people to share it. Either we face up to these new times or we become irrelevant. The next five years will be the fight of our lives and I’m standing here today because I don’t run away from a fight."
And she added: “We need to use this period to develop a shared understanding of why we lost and what we need to do to win. That must shape our politics, our campaigning priorities, our electoral strategy, and our policy priorities and formation.”
'UNITE AND REBUILD'
Ms Rayner meanwhile defended the party's left-wing call for a "new economic settlement" under Mr Corbyn, arguing against "vanilla" politics.
But she called on Labour to be the party of "new ideas and new thinking" and focus on winning as it seeks to rebuild trust with voters.
“It is clear what we now have to do," she said.
"Build unity for electoral victory. Build a national coalition that keeps the voters we’ve won; and wins back those we’ve lost. Hold the Tories to account as an effective opposition, and oppose their attacks on our people and communities every step of the way. Be the party of new ideas and new thinking. Organise our resources, devolve power and rebuild the party in the country. As a party we face a choice: win or die. And I fight to win.”
Ms Rayner, who was elected as MP for Ashton-under-Lyme in Greater Manchester in 2015, has already won the support of Labour frontbench colleagues Barry Gardiner and Louise Haigh.
Mr Gardiner, the Shadow International Trade Secretary, said: "She has a wonderful ability to connect with people, and she is the deputy leader we need to unite and rebuild our party. She will stand no nonsense from government ministers and will hold them strictly to account."
The speech from Ms Rayner comes as Labour's ruling National Executive Committee holds a meeting to firm up the timetable and rules for the upcoming leadership battle, with the formal contest expected to get underway on Tuesday.
Mr Corbyn is due to stay on as Labour leader until March, although the deputy leadership post is currently vacant after Tom Watson decided to step down ahead of December's snap election, which saw Labour plummet to its lowest number of Commons seats since the 1930s.
Sir Keir Starmer, Emily Thornberry, Clive Lewis, Lisa Nandy and Jess Phillips have all announced that they will run to lead the party, with Ms Long Bailey expected to announce this week.
PoliticsHome Newsletters
PoliticsHome provides the most comprehensive coverage of UK politics anywhere on the web, offering high quality original reporting and analysis: Subscribe
