Rayner eyeing frontline politics return - with allies confident tax probe will end by May elections

Angela Rayner's return to frontline politics began in earnest this week as the former deputy leader set out the challenge in the upcoming May elections.

"We are running out of time," she told MPs at a party event. "The very survival of the Labour Party is at stake." The intention is clear: Rayner wants to demonstrate she is back and Sky News understands that her allies are increasingly confident that issues around her tax affairs will be resolved before the May elections, paving her return to the frontline at a moment of clear peril for the prime minister.

Politics latest: Sarwar hasn't spoken to PM since urging him to quit Rayner was forced to resign in September after it emerged she had broken the ministerial code by underpaying stamp duty on her second home on the south coast by £40,000. At the time, Rayner admitted her mistake, but said it had been her initial "understanding, on advice from lawyers" that she had paid the correct amount, having put her stake in the family home into a trust of her disabled son following her divorce in 2023.

But a fresh probe concluded Rayner should have paid more stamp duty because her new property in Hove was classified as a second home. Since then, Rayner has been trying to resolve the matter with HMRC through lawyers and that process is reaching a culmination.

She has also been involved in speaking engagements and is writing an autobiography in an effort to raise enough funds to pay stamp duty owed and possible fines. It's thought she's poised to earn over £100,000, more than enough to pay stamp duty owed and possible fines.

As the tax dispute rumbles on, Rayner is rallying MPs ahead of critical elections in May. 'Losing faith in the PM' Friends of Rayner tell me the former deputy to Starmer - like many MPs across the party - has increasingly lost faith in the prime minister after the performance of his Number 10 operation, which has seen a huge turnover of staff, a series of damaging U-turns and bad decisions, culminating in the Mandelson scandal that has so badly wounded the prime minister and the party.

I understand that Rayner verbally warned the prime minister not to appoint Mandelson but was ignored. Rayner had all but disappeared from view after her resignation in September over her tax affairs, but has become more vocal in recent weeks, urging the government not to water down capping ground rents and being a leading figure forcing Number 10 to disclose the Mandelson files.

Read more:Labour's left unite behind 'major reset' call in new challenge to PMReform UK maintain poll leadRayner admits she should have paid more tax on house purchase Her rallying cry to Labour MPs this week was her strongest yet as she told MPs "not to be embarrassed by Labour values" and took aim at the party's divisive immigration proposals. Her speech to Labour's centre-left campaign group Mainstream's spring reception on Tuesday was a clear rebuke as she urged the prime minister to reconsider "un-British" immigration reforms.

The proposed changes to make it harder for migrant workers to quality for permanent residence in the UK have become a lightning rod for unhappy MPs, with over 100 signing a letter in recent weeks demanding that the prime minister water down the reforms. Labour 'running out of time' She also warned MPs in the wake of the Gorton and Denton by-election defeat to the Greens that the Labour Party "cannot just go through the motions in the face of decline.