Angela Rayner warns Labour Nigel Farage won't be defeated with 'caution'

Angela Rayner, the former Deputy Prime Minister, has warned that Labour will not defeat Nigel Farage's Reform UK with caution, calling instead for bold action to take on the right-wing populist party.

Speaking at the New Economics Foundation on Wednesday evening, Ms Rayner urged her party to tackle what she described as a rigged system rather than tinkering around the edges. She cautioned that avoiding decisive action would risk feeding into the populists' narrative that the establishment can only do more of the same.

Criticising those who acknowledge the system is rigged but then side with those who rigged it, Ms Rayner said: "Take my Employment Rights Act. Nigel Farage claims to speak for working people."

Ms Rayner, who quit the previous government's Cabinet in a row over her tax affairs, also gave her backing to incoming Prime Minister Andy Burnham's plans to move power out of Westminster and into town halls across the country. Burnham has pledged to establish a No10 North based in Manchester as the nerve centre of a rewired Britain.

Addressing the think tank's 40th anniversary, Ms Rayner called for real devolution for regional leaders and criticised the previous administration for defending the status quo. She spoke of how "Whitehall empires hoard their own power" and how "layers of governance and bureaucracy developed with the best of intentions too often end with the triumph of process over purpose."

Ms Rayner, who is tipped to return to government later this month in Cabinet, concluded by endorsing Burnham's vision: "This week Andy Burnham put forward a vision of good growth in every British postcode - and hope in every heart. Power in the hands of those who know their communities best."