{"id":417259,"date":"2025-09-12T01:49:21","date_gmt":"2025-09-12T01:49:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/417259\/"},"modified":"2025-09-12T01:49:21","modified_gmt":"2025-09-12T01:49:21","slug":"angela-rayner-has-gone-but-shes-left-a-ticking-time-bomb-under-us-personal-finance-finance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/417259\/","title":{"rendered":"Angela Rayner has gone \u2013 but she\u2019s left a ticking time bomb under us | Personal Finance | Finance"},"content":{"rendered":"

The deputy prime minister quit after fiddling her stamp duty bill to save \u00a340,000 on her \u00a3800,000 seaside flat in Hove<\/a>. Her exit may have secretly pleased Starmer, who never saw eye to eye with his pugnacious number two.<\/p>\n

Plenty of voters will be delighted she\u2019s gone. Rayner was the ultimate Marmite politician. You either loved her or loathed her. And Labour\u2019s grassroots loved her. She was the only recognisably working-class voice in a cabinet of middle-class careerists.<\/p>\n

Whichever side you\u2019re on, her rise from single mum at 16 to Westminster high office was a remarkable tale in class-ridden Britain.<\/p>\n

Now she\u2019s gone, although I have a sneaking suspicion she\u2019ll be back at some point<\/a>. Either way, her political legacy lingers on in the form of the Employment Rights Bill.<\/p>\n

This sweeping law hands workers new protections from day one on the job and clamps down on zero-hours contracts<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Trade unions can\u2019t wait to see it pass. Rayner started political life as a union rep, and the bill hands the unions more of the power they crave.<\/p>\n

And that\u2019s a disaster for Starmer.<\/p>\n

The unions still bankroll Labour and see Rayner\u2019s Bill as their payback. To others, it looks like a ticking time bomb primed to blow a hole in the already floundering UK economy. Starmer and Chancellor Rachel Reeves<\/a> know it too.<\/p>\n

Giving employees full rights without any probationary period will make employers think twice before hiring untested workers.<\/p>\n

Why take a punt on someone who could call in sick on their first day, leaving the firm with all the costs of employing them and none of the benefits?<\/p>\n

Bosses are already wary of employing Gen Z, often stereotyped as lazy, entitled and prone to pulling sickies at the first mention of the words \u201cmental health\u201d.<\/p>\n

Youth unemployment is already climbing at a terrifying rate, and this could lock even more young people out of the jobs market.<\/p>\n

It will also make life harder for those genuinely recovering from mental health issues, as many employers won’t be willing to give them a second chance, knowing they\u2019re stuck if they relapse. Instead of creating fairness, Rayner\u2019s reforms could lock people out of the jobs market.<\/p>\n

And this couldn\u2019t come at a worse time, with artificial intelligence ripping through entry-level graduate jobs.<\/p>\n

Starmer and Reeves have already hammered workers and businesses. The \u00a325billion hike in employers\u2019 national insurance is estimated to have destroyed 174,000 jobs, with another 100,000 at risk by Christmas.<\/p>\n

The unemployment rate has jumped from 4.3% to 4.7% since the Budget, and is heading towards 5%.<\/p>\n

Rayner\u2019s bomb is set to explode right in the middle of this mess. Starmer knows he needs to cut the wire.<\/p>\n

There is speculation that, with Rayner gone, he may try to trim the Bill\u2019s worst excesses. But he\u2019ll have to battle the unions at every turn.<\/p>\n

They\u2019ve waited decades to claw back the powers Margaret Thatcher stripped from them. This could turn into a monumental fight, with Angela Rayner<\/a> the trigger.<\/p>\n

The Employment Rights Bill isn\u2019t just ticking away beneath Labour. It\u2019s ticking under all of us.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The deputy prime minister quit after fiddling her stamp duty bill to save \u00a340,000 on her \u00a3800,000 seaside…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":417260,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,4],"tags":[9311,1700,3374,88299,807,528,12,16,10051,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-417259","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-uk","8":"category-united-kingdom","9":"tag-angela-rayner","10":"tag-economy","11":"tag-employment","12":"tag-employment-rights-bill","13":"tag-keir-starmer","14":"tag-labour-party","15":"tag-news","16":"tag-uk","17":"tag-uk-economy","18":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115188817222343208","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/417259","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=417259"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/417259\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/417260"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=417259"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=417259"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=417259"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}