Downing Street crisis: Starmer appoints tough immigration figure to Home Office

LondonA sense of chaos in Downing Street, like in the worst times of Theresa May, Boris Johnson, or the very brief Liz Truss; and a feeling, also, that Prime Minister Keir Starmer is not clear about what direction he should take and is following the lead of the populist and xenophobic leader Nigel Farage, who is currently soaring in the polls.

The resignation this Friday morning of Angela Rayner—number two in the government and the Labour Party—for not having paid the full amount of taxes related to the purchase of a second home, has served as an excuse for the Prime Minister to change some chairs for the Home Secretary, especially to position a tough one on legal immigration as well as on those arriving without papers.

Shabana Mahmood, until now Minister of Justice, has been the person chosen by Starmer to face the challenge of Farage and his Reform Party, which ten days ago promised "mass deportations" of migrants, with a Trumpian rhetoric that recalls the messages he uttered during the campaign Brexit referendum. Farage has even spoken of the people arriving in boats across the English Channel as a "veritable invasion."

Starmer had started the week—and the political year—on Monday by changing his team of closest collaborators for the third time in fourteen months, with the aim of using the movement to give new impetus to his government, which until now has been hampered by the lack of good economic results. "During this first year, we have laid the foundations," he said. And it was assumed that from now on the executive would gain cruising speed, despite the more than likely threat of tax increases in November, and a persistent inflation that the British feel every day in their pockets.

The previous week, however, the Conservative Daily Telegraph reported that Rayner had underpaid the tax she should have paid by £40,000 on the purchase of an apartment that was, in practice, her second home, not her first. Initially poorly advised by a firm of lawyers lacking tax expertise, Rayner chose to settle at the minimum rate. However, following persistent reports, she consulted a specialist firm earlier this week. On Wednesday, she admitted her error and, under already unbearable pressure, placed her political fate in the hands of Starmer's independent adviser on ministerial standards, Sir Laurie Magnus.

His report, released mid-morning Friday, was conclusive. Although Magnus asserted that there was no talk of intentional tax avoidance, he did establish that the government's deputy had "broken" the ministerial code of conduct. According to the document from the Prime Minister's ethics adviser, Rayner should have initially sought expert advice. Had he done so, he would have been advised to pay the higher rate of transfer tax. Magnus considered it "very unfortunate" that Rayner didn't pay the correct amount. His resignation came before the verdict was made public and caused a genuine uproar in Downing Street, amplified by the subsequent shake-up of the executive branch.

The game of musical chairs

Starmer has taken advantage of the crisis to move pieces on the government board. As mentioned, the Minister of Justice until this morning, Shabana Mahmood, has moved to Home Affairs, replacing Yvette Cooper, who is taking the reins of Foreign Affairs, replacing David Lammy, who is moving to Justice—a demotion—but who receives the consolation of being appointed Deputy Prime Minister. In practice, rather than reshuffling the government, Starmer has shaken it up, as only two names have been added. At least this implies that in fourteen months, premier He's had the right ministers, but in the wrong departments.

The real beneficiary of Rayner's departure from the government, and of the sense of chaos and improvisation that the episode leaves behind, is the aforementioned Nigel Farage. This Friday afternoon, in Birmingham, a key electoral city in Middle England, he opened his party's annual conference. And in the wake of the events in Downing Street, he brought forward the time of his speech and presented himself as the savior of the country's problems, once again pointing the finger at foreigners as responsible for all its ills, as he had done nine years ago during the Brexit campaign. Farage is convinced that there will be elections in 2027 and not in 2029, when they should be held.

Fourteen months after an overwhelming victory at the polls, but one that failed to inspire any great enthusiasm, Keir Starmer is running out of credit. Either the new executive gets it right, or a populist and extremist will end up as Her Majesty's Prime Minister.

A very combative woman

Rayner, 45, is a very popular figure on the party's left because of her background as a single mother and teenager—her son Ryan was born when she was 16—and because she comes from a working-class family, far removed from the institutional and rather moderate Labourism embodied by Starmer. Rayner represented, at least until now, the best of Labour's tradition as a movement for social equality. She also symbolized the party's energy for renewal, with her straightforward discourse and a track record like the one mentioned above that contrasted with the bureaucratic dullness of many leaders. But the scandal has made her a prime target of the right and far right—in fact, she already was—and in recent days, graffiti accusing her of being a tax evader has appeared in front of the new apartment she recently bought.

As deputy prime minister, she wielded real executive influence over key policies like housing (with Starmer promising to build 1.5 million new homes) and, as the party's No. 2, she lent legitimacy to the Labour leadership among its rank and file. Her absence opens a period of uncertainty in which the narrative of "change" that brought Starmer to power is undermined.