Angela Rayner is plotting a "chicken run" to a safe seat because the Deputy Prime Minister is "terrified" about the surge in support for Nigel Farage's Reform UK, Richard Tice has warned.
Ms Rayner was accused of giving herself the option to relocate some 240 miles from Ashton-under-Lyne to Hove as opinion polls show a so-called "Portillo Moment" is becoming increasingly likely in her Greater Manchester seat.
Despite Ashton-under-Lyne being a Labour-held seat since 1935, Nowcast now suggests Reform UK has opened up a 17-point lead over Ms Rayner.
Ms Rayner held off a challenge from Reform's 2024 challenger Robert Barrowcliffe by just 6,791 votes, with the Tories slumping into a distant third-place.
Meanwhile, Hove & Portslade, where Ms Rayner has now purchased a seaside flat for almost £800,000, returned Technology Secretary Peter Kyle with a majority of 19,881 votes.
Mr Tice said: “Angela Rayner is so terrified of losing her seat to Reform at the next election, she is buying herself an option to take on the Greens in Brighton. The ultimate plant-based chicken run.”
Ms Rayner has long been rumoured to be planning a leadership bid to succeed Sir Keir Starmer in No10.
Labour sources have even suggested that Ms Rayer could look to stand in other liberal-leaning seats on the south coast, The Telegraph has claimed.
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Angela Rayner is thought to have saved £40,000 | PAPutting more pressure on Ms Rayner, Shadow Cabinet Office Minister Mike Wood said: “Angela Rayner needs to come clean on whether she has flipped her homes to line up running in Brighton and Hove in the next election.
“It’s not credible for her to tell the council in Tameside it’s her primary home when she’s bolted and living elsewhere.”
Speculation about Ms Rayner's potential chicken run comes after the Deputy Prime Minister was left facing an investigation into whether she evaded tax from a "prime residence" capital gains tax exemption on her Greater Manchester home.
The Tories have referred Ms Rayner to Sir Laurie Magnus, the Prime Minister’s independent adviser on ministers’ interests, saying her behaviour had been “unethical”.
Angela Rayner could be plotting a move from Ashton-under-Lyne to Sussex
|GB NEWS
The change, which saw Ms Rayner remove herself from the deeds on her Ashton-under-Lyne home, is estimated to have saved the Deputy Prime Minister a staggering £40,000.
However, a Labour source dismissed speculation about Ms Rayner upping sticks and standing in Sussex.
“From the party whose leader has stood in seven different seats, this is some brass neck," the insider said.
“Angela will take on anyone who wants to challenge her, and stand on her record of serving the community she is proud to represent in Parliament.”
Angela Rayner's support in Ashton-under-Lyne has plummeted since the 2024 General Election
|GB NEWS
However, Graham Stringer became the first Labour MP to break ranks yesterday by criticising Ms Rayner over the housing row.
He claimed it looks as if Ms Rayner was “manipulating the tax system” to her own benefit, adding: “The optics of it, just before the Chancellor is going to do a Budget, doesn’t look good.”
Despite Mr Tice taking aim at Ms Rayner over a potential chicken run, Mr Farage this week appeared to criticise the Tories over the Housing Secretary's second home row.
Speaking in Oxfordshire, the Reform UK leader said: "Isn't it funny that the residence that Angela Rayner is living in London is now coming under criticism from James Cleverly?
Nigel Farage has seen his support surge in Ashton-under-Lyne and across the country
| PA"He wasn't complaining when Michael Gove was living there.
"So, it's just party politics. If Angela Rayner had been tremendously successful in business and managed to acquire a property portfolio and done it properly, then jolly good luck to her.
"This whole sort of hair shirt approach, most of the press want politicians in sackcloth and ashes, would like all of us to vegan and give up drinking. Well, it's not happening here."
Responding to comments about Ms Rayner's second home, a spokesman for the Deputy Prime Minister said: “The Deputy Prime Minister paid the relevant duty owing on the purchase of the Hove property in line with relevant requirements and entirely properly. Any suggestion otherwise is entirely without basis.”