Born in 1980, Angela Reiner could, if she followed the classic model of her generation, have one or two very young children and pursue a career.
But she is a mother of three and has a granddaughter… aged 7. She became a mother at 16 and a grandmother at 37! And no. This is by no means the most remarkable element in the truly sensational story of the woman who was today appointed Deputy Prime Minister in Keir Starmer’s new government.
Thank you. ♥️ https://t.co/NtIObpMCxn
-Angela Rayner (@AngelaRayner) July 5, 2024
Life with a bipolar and illiterate mother
She was born in Stockport into a family that had faced great hardship. Her mother was illiterate and did not work. Her father was constantly changing jobs and was unemployed for long periods. They lived, as she said, on benefits and help for the needy.
There was never any food on the table at home. He was fed on free school meals – a policy introduced by the Labour Party. And there were no books on the shelves. “We never bought any books at home because my mother couldn’t read or write,” he explained to the Financial Times.
In her early teens, she still had to take care of her mother, who had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder.
Pregnancy and the warning that “it will never work”
At the age of 16, she was forced to drop out of school. She became pregnant with her first child and had to support herself.
He didn’t have time to specialize in anything, he couldn’t fill in the “education” and “qualifications” fields.
When he left school, someone told him that “she is a zero”, that “she will never achieve anything in life”. He decided to prove them wrong.
Studies and entry into the union
After giving birth, she not only graduated from high school, but also entered college, where she studied British Sign Language and Social Services, while working part-time.
After graduating, she was hired as a carer in the municipality. Very soon she was elected as a workers’ representative and began her union activity. “I was talkative, I fought back and I didn’t accept injustices from the management”, she said.
She gradually rose through the ranks of the Unison trade union, eventually representing 200,000 workers in the northwest of England. She married Unison executive Mark Rayner in 2010. They divorced in 2020.
She moved from trade unionism to politics in the 2010s. In 2015 she was elected to Parliament. She was the first female MP in the 180-year history of her constituency (Ashton-under-Lyne).
Rising through the Labour ranks and the relationship with Starmer
In the Labour Party, she quickly made a name for herself and quickly rose through the ranks. From 2015 onwards, she was successively appointed head of Education and Equalities, while in 2020 she was elected deputy chairman of the party. Her relationship with the new Labour leader, Keir Starmer, was not the best. After all, she is considered a representative of the so-called “left” and identifies herself as a “socialist”, but not as a “Corbynista”, as she makes clear (which means, of course, that she is no fan of Jeremy Corbyn, the former Labour leader, who after leading the party to its worst defeat since the 1930s, was elected in that election as an independent).
Rayner not only rebuffed Starmer’s initial attempts to demote her in the party hierarchy and keep her out of critical positions, but also managed to convince him to trust her. She became a shadow minister and in September 2023 it was clear that he would be appointed deputy prime minister in the event of a Labour election victory.
The threats to your life
Rainer has received threats against her life and said she had long ago installed a douche button in her home. In 2021, a man was convicted after admitting to sending a threatening email warning her to “take care of yourself and your children.”
On the day the sentence was announced, she apologised “unreservedly” for calling the Conservatives “scum” at the party conference.
In 2022, an article in the Mail on Sunday claimed that Conservative MPs had alleged a “Basic Instinct” conspiracy by the party to distract Boris Johnson by “crossing his legs”. She called the article “disgusting” and complained that it was not just about her being a woman, but about class stereotypes about where and how she grew up. The article provoked a backlash, and Boris Johnson himself publicly condemned it as an anonymous and misogynistic attack on her.
Over the past year, she has been under the microscope because of her tax arrangements before she was elected to the legislature.
The search for the declaration of your residence
She faced questions over whether she paid the correct amount of tax after selling her Stockport home in 2015, after critics questioned her claim the property was her main residence.
In April, police reopened an investigation into allegations that she may have violated electoral law by declaring her home as her main residence rather than that of her then-husband — which could be a violation of electoral rules. She denied any wrongdoing. On May 28, the investigation was closed without any evidence against her.