Angela Rayner launched tirade against 'nonce' Prince Andrew

Angela Rayner waged a private battle to stop 'that nonce' Prince Andrew from ever standing in for his brother the King, it was claimed yesterday.

The Deputy Prime Minister reportedly fought to get the Duke of York removed from the official list of deputies to Charles if he was abroad or incapacitated.

According to Get In, a new book on Labour's journey to power, Ms Rayner could not accept any deputy role for Andrew over his controversial links with paedophile Jeffrey Epstein.

She allegedly said: 'I'm not going to vote to keep that nonce on… I can't go back to my constituency and say, 'Yeah, I support that'.'

The reports came as the Duke of York faced claims of 'selective amnesia' over his contacts with the disgraced financier, who was found hanged in his prison cell in 2019 while awaiting his trial on sex trafficking charges.

Court documents revealed that Andrew had sent an email to Epstein to 'keep in close touch and we'll play some more soon!!!!' in February 2011, despite having insisted in a BBC interview that he had broken off contact with Epstein in early December 2010.

Following Charles's accession to the throne in September 2022, there were calls for Andrew and Prince Harry to be removed as 'counsellors of state' who could deputise for the King. Get In claims that Ms Rayner – then in Opposition – focused on stopping Andrew from assuming that role. 

An adviser reportedly said: 'She was very actively reaching out to the Palace, the upper echelons of the civil service. And said she thought this was a huge problem, and that the Government needed to address this, and that she would offer cross-party support to make sure it happened.'

The aide added that Ms Rayner was 'not anti-monarchist' and reportedly summed her view as: 'I know how difficult it is to be in a big, dysfunctional family.'

In the event, the law was changed to add Princess Anne and Prince Edward to the list of counsellors of state, in what was seen as a diplomatic way of avoiding Andrew standing in. 

Labour's doubts 

Labour's doubts over Sir Keir Starmer's leadership burst into the open last night amid claims he 'was not driving the train'.

In a scathing verdict apparently delivered shortly before last year's General Election, one aide reportedly likened him to a passenger on a driverless train on London's Docklands Light Railway (DLR), according to Get In.

And in Get In, which is being serialised in The Times and Sunday Times, journalists Patrick Maguire and Gabriel Pogrund report that Ms Rayner was privately furious that Andrew would still technically be on the list, telling her staff, 'I'm not going to vote to keep that nonce on'.

She then apparently made her views known in a Zoom meeting with then Cabinet Secretary Simon Case, but reportedly emerged from the meeting 'chastened'. An adviser said: 'She never, ever spoke about the royals like that again.'

The book also reports that Ms Rayner was furious to have been left off a list prepared by party Chief Whip Sir Alan Campbell, of leading Labour MPs who took the new oath of allegiance in the Commons immediately after Charles took the throne.

Ms Rayner reportedly said: 'I must have been missed', but the book claimed that 'Rayner's exclusion was intentional'. 

Last night one Labour source told The Mail on Sunday there was 'no list' to swear allegiance. 

He added that if Ms Rayner was 'disinvited, she disinvited herself'. Separately, sources close to Ms Rayner said she had fully supported the Counsellors of State Bill in 2022.

In his famous 2019 Newsnight interview, Andrew told Emily Maitlis he had stopped seeing Epstein in early December 2010, when they were photographed walking through Central Park. He added: 'I never had any contact with him from that day forward.'

But yesterday, that account was challenged over reports that he had sent a 'keep in close touch' email to the financier in February 2011. 

One of Epstein's victims, Marijke Chartouni, said: 'Andrew has selective amnesia when it comes to his friendship with Epstein.' There is no suggestion that Andrew – who did fly on the financier's private jet – was an accomplice of Epstein.