The Tory Obsession with Angela Rayner

Some quick points about the Tories' obsessive attacks on Angela Rayner.

1. From their side of the fence, Matthew Parris's argument that the Tories hate her because she's an "uppity lass" rings true. These are the sort of people who can barely tolerate the few working class Tories they have on their own benches, let alone those with the temerity to oppose and hurl jibes at them from the opposition. She doesn't fit the briefcase image the Tories cultivate to affect seriousness of purpose. And one other Labour MPs of working class origin, such as Wes Streeting and Bridget Phillipson, aspire to by effacing their background. She stands out because she's unapologetic, refuses to submit to their style of politics, and whose presence might encourage more of the hoi polloi to enter into parliamentary politics. We can't well have that.

2. As Diane Abbott is temporarily unavailable as a hate figure for the Tories, they need a new target. For the above reasons, Rayner grates on the Tory psyche outside of parliament as well. Not only is she working class, but she was a favourite scapegoat of the recent pass - she was a teenaged mum. There are Tory voters for whom 1908s and 1990s press campaigns demonising single and unmarried young mums left a sweet spot their party can tickle at any time. And now they're in the direst of straits, the Tories are using anything, anything to try and consolidate their fraying core vote coalition. Their smears of Rayner, "coincidentally" coming at a time of Tory scandals, is a doomed effort at plugging the gaps.

3. This isn't just about style or not liking working class women. There is relevant political content here that goes beyond her simply batting for the red team. Because Rayner came up through Unison and is, rare these days, an example of the old shop floor to the parliamentary floor conveyor belt, she is a reminder of a labour movement the Tories have long thought was very dead. But also Rayner has taken up the championing of workers' rights. These, like everything else, have been diluted since Keir Starmer articulated the place for trade unions in his authoritarian modernisation project. But it says everything about how pathetic workers' protections are in this country that even as they stand watered down, what Labour is presenting today would mark a positive step forward. This is too much for a Tory party dedicated to driving out the barest influence of the labour movement on mainstream politics. They attack Rayner because she embodies what, in their view, is an illegitimate presence. A view that does have a following among Labour's ranks too.

4. Given the dismal part Rayner played in throwing Jeremy Corbyn and the left under a bus, and how she enables Starmerism, some comrades have wondered aloud why others on the left, and not just those remaining inside of Labour, have defended her? When the left was down she put the boot in, and she's hardly going to jeopardise her own meteoric rise in the party to defend socialists in the future. An entirely reasonable question. And the answer to this is why the Tories are attacking her. I.e. She's a working class woman who has no place in politics because of who she is, the fact she represents the labour movement on the front bench, and she is pushing a pro-trade union line that the Tories absolutely cannot countenance. They want her gone so, they hope, this agenda might disappear with her and that future leading working class MPs will steer clear of workers' rights to avoid getting hounded by the media.

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