Angela Rayner cleared by HMRC, stamp duty settlement closes tax case

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Angela Rayner has been cleared by HMRC of deliberate wrongdoing or carelessness over her tax affairs, clearing the way for a challenge to the Labour leadership as Kier Starmer’s grip on power continues to unravel. Photograph: David Levene/The Guardian theguardian.com

Keir Starmer faces another day of questions over his future as Wes Streeting prepare to launch a challenge for the leadership. Photograph: James Manning/PA theguardian.com

standard.co.uk

standard.co.uk

standard.co.uk

The elections mark a perfect opportunity for other leadership hopefuls in the Labour Party to finally strike (PA) independent.co.uk

Keir Starmer and Andy Burnham at an event in Greater Manchester in April (Getty) Getty

Then deputy prime minister Angela Rayner and leader Keir Starmer in December 2024 (AFP/Getty) AFP/Getty

Positioned in the centre-right of the Labour Party, Wes Streeting is the most likely leadership contender from within the cabinet (PA) independent.co.uk

Ed Miliband has emerged as an unexpected contender to replace the prime minister (AFP/Getty) AFP/Getty

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Angela Rayner was cleared by HMRC of deliberate wrongdoing in a long-running investigation into her tax affairs, according to The Guardian and the Evening Standard. Rayner has settled £40,000 in unpaid stamp duty after initially paying a lower rate, and HMRC concluded there was no tax avoidance and imposed no penalty. The outcome lands in the middle of Labour’s internal crisis, as MPs openly discuss whether Keir Starmer can survive after heavy local-election losses.

Rayner’s clearance matters less as a personal vindication than as a constraint being removed from a leadership map already being drawn. The Guardian reports that Wes Streeting, the health secretary, is preparing to resign in order to force a contest if he can secure enough support among MPs, while figures on Labour’s left scramble to identify a candidate to oppose him. Rayner, previously forced out of cabinet when the stamp duty issue erupted, is now able to say she could run “if” a contest is triggered while insisting she will not be the person to trigger it. That posture reflects the mechanics of Westminster leadership fights: the reputational costs of starting a civil war are higher than the costs of joining one once it is underway.

The episode also shows how quickly politics turns administrative process into factional weaponry. HMRC’s finding removes the implication of deliberate misconduct, but it does not change the underlying fact that a senior politician underpaid stamp duty and later paid a large settlement. In the Evening Standard’s account, Chancellor Rachel Reeves is already trying to price the turmoil in macroeconomic terms, warning colleagues not to “plunge the country into chaos” after new GDP growth figures. The message is aimed as much at MPs weighing their own career risks as at voters: a leadership change would be sold as competence, but it would be executed as disruption.

For Starmer, the timing is awkward. Efforts to unseat him appeared to stall midweek, with no fresh ministerial resignations and Westminster’s attention shifting to the King’s Speech, the Standard reports. But Rayner’s re-entry into the field increases the number of plausible endgames: a Streeting-led push that tries to look like a modernisation project, or a counter-mobilisation that treats the local-election losses as proof the current strategy is failing. The Independent’s wider leadership round-up underscores the same point from another angle: multiple camps have been planning for months, and the trigger is less a single scandal than a party machine absorbing electoral damage and reallocating blame.

HMRC’s conclusion is that Rayner committed no deliberate wrongdoing and owes no penalty. Labour’s conclusion—who should pay for the election defeat—still has a price tag, but no agreed payer.