ANGELA Rayner has said she “never” wants to be Prime Minister or leader of the Labour Party after a leaked memo sparked an internal party row.
The Deputy Prime Minister was asked to rule herself out from the top job after a memo she sent to Rachel Reeves suggesting tax rises was leaked to the press.
Rayner suggested reinstating the pensions lifetime allowance and changing dividend taxes in a memo to the Chancellor with ideas to raise revenue, according to the Telegraph, which saw a copy of the document.
The DPM said she was “absolutely not” behind a leaked memo, and ruled out becoming Prime Minister in the future when appearing on Sky News’s Sunday Morning With Trevor Phillips.
Rayner was asked to dispel suggestions she may have been behind the leak of the memo, in order to grow support for a future Labour leadership bid.
She replied: “Yeah, absolutely not, and I don’t want to be leader of the Labour Party.”
Pressed on this, she added: “No, I’m very happy and honoured to be Deputy Prime Minister of this country, and I’ve got a lot in my in-tray to prove that I can do the job that I’m doing and deliver on the milestones for the people of this country.
“That’s what I’m interested in.”
Asked to say the word never, she replied: “Never.”
Later appearing on the BBC’s Sunday With Laura Kuenssberg, Rayner was adamant she had nothing to do with the memo appearing in public.
“I do not leak. I think leaks are very damaging. I’m 100% behind our Cabinet and the decisions that we make collectively,” she said.
The DPM also told the BBC there was no “significant different opinion across government”.
She added: “The Government has discussions. We do that in private. So I’m not going to comment on any memos or documents that have been circulated, but I can tell you that the Government is absolutely 100% behind our Chancellor, and as a Cabinet we make the collective decisions.”
An inquiry is “under way” into how the memo was leaked, she also suggested.
Asked by Sky News if a probe would be launched, Rayner said: “I think there’s one under way, and quite rightly so, because leaks are very damaging.
“It’s really damaging, because we have lots of sensitive conversations in the round, all of us, and then we make a collective decision.”
