Angela Rayner has announced her decision to resign from her position as Deputy Prime Minister of the United Kingdom over a tax error involving underpaid stamp duty on a property purchase.
The 45-year-old Labour MP, a key figure in UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s administration, also stepped down as housing secretary on Friday, September 5, 2025, after an independent investigation that found she breached the ministerial code.
Pan-Atlantic Kompass reports that the Angela Rayner tax saga began when she admitted to underpaying £40,000 in stamp duty on a seaside flat in Hove, East Sussex.
Rayner then referred herself to the independent adviser on ministerial standards, Laurie Magnus, after mounting pressure and media scrutiny.
Magnus, in a report, said that the investigation concluded that Angela Rayner failed to seek specialist tax advice despite warnings from two law firms, leading to the breach.
With the conclusion of the investigation, Rayner, in a letter addressed to Starmer on Friday, said that the strain her three children have been put through by her remaining in post has “become unbearable” and she “deeply” regrets her decision not to seek additional specialist tax advice.
She said: “I would like to take this opportunity to repeat that it was never my intention to do anything other than pay the right amount.
“For a teenage mum from a council estate in Stockport to serve at the highest level of government has been the honour of my life.
“The challenges of government are nothing compared to the challenge of putting food on the table and getting a roof over our head when I brought up kids working as a home help.
“Every day I spent in the office, I worked to serve working-class communities like the one that I grew up in, which are too often overlooked by those in power.
“I am proud that in every decision I made, I did it for them. I would never have become deputy prime minister if not for the decisions taken by the last Labour government, giving me a council house to support me, Sure Start to help raise my kids, and the security of a minimum wage – and I can only hope that the changes I made in government will have the same impact for young girls growing up on council estates like I did.”
Replying to the resignation letter, Starmer said he is “very sad” at her resignation.
He continued: “You have been a trusted colleague and a true friend for many years. I have nothing but admiration for you and huge respect for your achievements in politics.
“Even though you won’t be part of the government, you will remain a major figure in our party. I know you will continue to fight for the causes you care so passionately about.”
Reactions are already trooping in following Rayner’s resignation.
Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch released a video saying Rayner’s position had been “untenable for days” and it was only because of Starmer’s “weakness that she wasn’t sacked three days ago”.
She claimed it was because of the Conservatives that the episode was investigated, and asked what Starmer knew and when, and whether he had misled the public.
Badenoch also noted that Starmer has now lost a deputy prime minister, a transport secretary (Louise Haigh), an anti-corruption minister (Tulip Siddiq), and a homelessness minister (Rushanara Ali) – and said that is a distraction.
Reacting also, UK Reform leader, Nigel Farage said: “It screams to a government that, despite all the promises that this would be a new, different kind of politics is as bad, if not worse, than the one that went before.
“There’ll be Labour MPs who reckon they’ve got a better chance on the Jeremy Corbyn sectarian ticket because frankly that’s what’s going on in our country – we have sectarian politics emerging. I loathe it.”
