Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood may be sacked to pave the way for the return of Angela Rayner to Sir Keir Starmer’s cabinet, the chairman of the Conservative Party has said.
Kevin Hollinrake told GB News: “Angela Rayner was caught in very difficult circumstances having dodged her tax and lied about it. Whether Keir Starmer feels the right time to bring her back, because he’s in crisis, his own government’s in crisis, we’ll see.
“One thing we do not want to see is the price of that which has been rumoured [to be] to get rid of their Home Secretary, Shabana Mahmood.
“She’s come up with some decent plans to reduce illegal migration and to extend what’s called indefinite leave to remain, which is making it more difficult for people to get permanent residents in this country when they come to the UK.
“We agree with those plans, we’ve offered to work with the government on those plans on a collaborative basis in the interest of the country. Again, that’s something that Keir Starmer has thrown back in our face.
“I wonder what the price of Angela really coming back to the cabinet will be, and we think that’d be a price, that price is far too high and would be against the interest of the country.”
On the vote on an investigation into the Peter Mandelson affair yesterday, he said: “Clearly, the Prime Minister and the Labour Party has a huge majority in Parliament, and it used it to best effect yesterday, despite the fact 15 Labour MPs voted against the Prime Minister’s motion or position on this.
“The reality is, he escaped the scrutiny of the Privileges Committee which we think this matter needed to be referred to, because these are very, very serious allegations, misleading Parliament, sacking one of your top officials in the process. These people are instrumental to good governance for this country.
“This shows a prime minister that’s on the ropes and his time is nearly up. We’re not sure when he’ll go, but he’ll go I think in the coming weeks.”
