Angela Rayner resigns as UK deputy PM following stamp duty controversy

Labour’s Angela Rayner – who once firmly said trans rights are “not in conflict with women’s rights” – has resigned as deputy prime minister, housing secretary and deputy leader of the Labour Party after admitting she did not pay enough stamp duty on her second home.

Keir Starmer’s second-in-command has been under increasing pressure to step down after admitting she underpaid £40,000 worth of stamp duty on an £800,000 flat she bought earlier this year in Hove, East Sussex.

She told Sky News’ Beth Rigby the underpayment was down to a “mistake” which did not accurately “take account” her circumstances, namely that she was advised the property counted as her primary residence rather than a second home.

Earlier this week, Rayner voluntarily referred herself to Sir Laurie Magnus – the Independent Adviser on Ministers’ Interests – who carried out an assessment of whether she breached the ministerial code.

In Sir Laurie’s letter to the prime minister, shared by the BBC, he outlined that whilst Rayner sought advice on her tax affairs this was not expert advice and without having consulted such advice she “cannot be considered to have met the highest possible standards of proper conduct”.

He added it is “deeply regrettable” she did not seek the advice and stated he believes she acted “with integrity and with a dedicated and exemplary commitment to public service”.

In her resignation letter to Starmer, Rayner wrote she accepts she “did not meet the highest standards” when buying the flat.

“I deeply regret my decision to not seek additional specialist tax advice given both my position as housing secretary and my complex family arrangements,” she said.

“It was never my intention to do anything other than pay the right amount.”

What has Angela Rayner said about LGBTQ+ rights?

During her political career, Rayner had a long record of supporting LGBTQ+ rights and speaking up for trans people. However, more recently she has been criticised for not speaking out against the Supreme Court’s controversial ruling on the legal definition of ‘sex’ in the 2010 Equality Act.

Elected as an MP in 2015, Rayner’s voting record shows she supported extending same-sex marriage to Northern Ireland in 2019.

Following this, in 2021, Rayner criticised the then-Tory government’s “campaign of hate” against trans people, labelling it an “opportunity to divide people [that is] disgusting, that is disgraceful”.

In March 2022, she shut down a line of questioning about trans people’s genitals during an interview with Kay Burly, who brought up Keir Starmer “struggling” to answer the dogwhistle question “can a woman have a penis?”

“This really upsets me because I think about a young person who’s struggling at the moment, who’s struggling with their identity, and when we’re having a social media or a debate around what genitalia someone’s got, I think it really debases the serious issues that people face in their lives,” she said.

“I think we should be taking it off social media and taking it away from commentators. There [are] protections for women and women that are in vulnerable situations, and we should also be looking after our young people who may be facing identity crises and making sure they get the help and support they need.

“When we debase it to what genitalia you’ve got, I think all that does is damage people and it doesn’t help us go forward on some of the real issues that people are facing.”

Following this, she stated women’s rights and trans rights are not in conflict are not in conflict with one another.

“I still stand by they are not in conflict with women’s rights,” Rayner said during an interview on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme. “We have talked about the Gender Recognition Act, we have talked about reform, we have talked about a process. 

“Of course there has to be a process for people that is supportive and that is when you get into the weeds of how [to] ensure that we have trans rights that are compatible and compassionate and humane. At the moment, the process isn’t.

“We have acknowledged that there are problems with the process, and, therefore, there has to be a process… that recognises people can transition, and we do that in a way that is supportive of those people.

“But we have also, in the Equality Act that the Labour government introduced, had the safeguards for women-only spaces. That is absolutely appropriate and we have seen the conflict of what happens when those safeguards are not put in place.”

Despite previous supportive statements, Rayner has been increasingly criticised by trans folks for failing to stand up for their rights in the wake of the Supreme Court ruling and EHRC guidance, which seeks to ban trans people from single-sex spaces.

On Reddit, a user who claimed to be one of her constituents shared a copy of an unsatisfying response she sent to them after they wrote to her expressing concern about the ruling.

They scathingly said “ChatGPT worked really hard” on the letter and described her as a “lost cause”.