Angela Rayner is set for a comeback – and Chancellor Rachel Reeves could face the sack.
Angela Rayner could make a comeback in Keir Starmer’s reshuffle (Image: Getty)
Keir Starmer is planning a lurch to the left in a last-ditch Cabinet reshuffle to save his premiership. It would mean bringing former Deputy Leader Angela Rayner and former Transport Secretary Louise Haigh back into his top team, after both were previously forced to resign from the Cabinet.
Sir Keir is also considering sacking Health Secretary Wes Streeting, who is on the right of the party. Mr Streeting has been the subject of claims that he is plotting to replace the Prime Minister, which he vehemently denies. There could be a return for Lucy Powell, the former Leader of the Commons, who was sacked by Sir Keir in September 2025 but went on to be elected Labour’s new deputy leader, suggesting she has the support of many party activists. She is on the soft left of the party and close to Andy Burnham, the Greater Manchester Mayor, seen as a potential leadership contender.
The most difficult decision facing the Prime Minister is whether to sack his Chancellor, Rachel Reeves. Sir Keir said last year she would keep her job “into the next election and for many years after”, after she was seen crying during Prime Minister’s Questions. But he is now considering replacing her to signal that the Government is making a fresh start.
One insider said, according to reports: “A shift to the left means a change in economic policy, which means a new chancellor.”
Ms Reeves could be replaced by Treasury minister Torsten Bell, a former think tank head, or Darren Jones, a close ally of the Prime Minister.
Ms Rayner, who served in the Shadow Cabinet when Labour was led by Jeremy Corbyn, was one of the leaders of a successful campaign to pressure the Government into axing the two-child benefit cap, something Sir Keir and Ms Reeves previously resisted. She resigned from the front bench last year after it emerged she underpaid tax on an 800,000 flat in Hove, but hopes the tax office will have resolved the issue before May’s local elections, making a return to the front line of politics possible.
In an explosive speech last week, she warned: “The very survival of the Labour Party is at stake – as a party and a movement we cannot hide, we cannot go through the motions in the face of decline. We are running out of time.”
It was seen as a call to arms for colleagues considering whether to oust Sir Keir if Labour suffers losses in Wales, Scotland and English local councils on May 7.
Unite general secretary Sharon Graham made the threat explicit last week, saying: “I think after the May elections there will be a move to change leader, because I think Labour are going to pretty much be decimated in those elections.”
However, Sir Keir could prevent Ms Rayner from moving against him by bringing her back into the Government fold – if she accepts a job.
Ms Haigh left the Government in 2024 after it emerged that she had pleaded guilty to fraud by false representation in 2014, following a 2013 police report that her work phone had been stolen.
She has since become a leading member of the Tribune Group of Labour MPs, which is pushing the Government to move to the left on the economy, including by pushing up the minimum wage further.