The Hounding of Britain's Deputy Prime Minister was Sexist and Classist

There is a famous photograph of Angela Rayner, who was until last week Britain's deputy prime minister. In it, she is sort of semi-slumped in a blow-up rubber boat, tattoos on display, half-heartedly trying to disguise a vape. That picture brought out a very British brand of snobbery in some sections of society: She is displaying "all the badges of chavdom," wrote a commenter on a column in a right-wing weekly (a chav is a lout, usually working-class—a sort of British hillbilly). Now Rayner's career has fallen victim to that snobbery.

Rayner, an outspoken, 45 year-old grandmother, worked her way out of poverty and all the way up the ranks of Britain’s left-wing Labour party to become, in 2024, Britain’s deputy prime minister. But on Friday, she submitted her resignation letter after a two-week media campaign against her which saw her financial affairs splashed across newspapers from tabloids to broadsheets, her behavior so heavily scrutinized that she was forced to release private details about the medical condition of her son. 

The situation is, admittedly, complex: Rayner underpaid tax by about £40,000 on an apartment she bought in the seaside town of Hove, it was reported towards the end of August. The arrangement was complicated by the fact she had recently sold her stake in her family home to a trust set up for her son—she claimed the apartment as her main residence, but after legal advice it was revealed that it should have been registered as her second home, which would have increased the tax bill. Rayner claimed she hadn’t been given the right advice; the law firm she used said it had never claimed to offer such advice in the first place. On Friday, she resigned, writing that she took “full responsibility for this error.”

It’s messy, for sure—but was it so messy she should have been forced to resign? Men in similar positions have remained in situ. Take the former prime minister Boris Johnson, who failed to declare a donation of more than £52,000 to refurbish his residence at 10 Downing Street. (Johnson spent the money on gold wallpaper and a £3,675 drinks trolley.)

And last week it was reported that Nigel Farage, the leader of the far right party Reform UK, had avoided (though not evaded—the first is legal, the other is not) paying £44,000 worth of tax on a house purchase which he claimed he had made, but in fact his partner made, thus reducing his tax bill. He has apologized, sort of (“My partner bought it, so what?”) but not resigned. Not even close. 

But Rayner’s tax arrangements were never, really, the point. Some have never liked her because she doesn’t fit the conventional archetype of a British politician. 

She wears Doc Martens onstage and describes herself as “mouthy.” She didn’t grow up rich; she grew up on a council estate in Stockport, in the outskirts of Manchester, with a mother who couldn’t read or write. She didn’t go to Oxford or Cambridge like 21% of the House of Commons did; she had a baby aged 16, and studied at a local college to become a care worker. She didn’t learn to debate at a private boarding school; she honed her skills as a union leader. 

She is also, notably, a woman—and not the sort who, like Margaret Thatcher, tried to emulate her male colleagues by deepening her voice or wearing boxy jackets. With Rayner’s curtain of red hair, sharp tongue and even sharper dress sense, she is unapologetic about her femininity. That’s been the source of many campaigns against her. 

In 2022 a British tabloid accused her of “crossing and uncrossing” her legs in the House of Commons to put off then-Prime Minister Johnson—a deeply misogynistic story which, to their credit, even her political opponents described as “dirty” and “ludicrous.” In 2024, just after she was appointed to her role as deputy prime minister, she was lambasted for the crime of dancing at a nightclub in Ibiza, an £836 ($1,133) trip which was paid for by the operator of the nightclub she was in. Last September, she was criticized for receiving more than £2,000 worth of free clothes from the brand Me+Em. Both the trip and the clothes were fine under parliamentary rules—but clearly not fine for her. 

In the case of the tax paid on the apartment, should Rayner have done more to figure out the tax rules? Yes. Should she have been forced to give up her job? That’s less sure.

But Rayner is a woman whose intelligence and talent allowed her to not just leave behind a difficult childhood, but to smash the expectations of British society. She first stood for parliament to prove that “people like me can't get elected”—but then did. 

We celebrated after the last election, when it emerged that for the first time, the British cabinet was almost 50% women—and the shortlist of people vying to replace Rayner in her role as deputy leader of the Labour Party is entirely made up of women, which should be seen as good news. But whoever is chosen should be looking over her shoulder. Because the loss of Rayner, one of the British government’s smartest operators, is nothing but sexism—with a dash of old fashioned British snobbery thrown in.