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LONDON — Boris Johnson has few political friends, but he’s just found two unexpected allies.
Labour Leader Keir Starmer and his deputy Angela Rayner heaped praise on the former Tory prime minister’s flagship “leveling-up” policy, which sought to transfer power outside London before Johnson was taken down by his own party.
Writing for the Times, the duo claimed the Conservatives’ leveling-up white paper “started to understand” Britain’s regional divides. Parts of it, they said, “talked a good game” about building up neglected parts of the U.K. beyond the capital city.
The pair’s remarks came ahead of the party’s local election campaign launch in the West Midlands, which contains numerous seats Labour hopes to regain from the Tories.
Many voters in what has been dubbed the Red Wall voted Conservative for the first time under Johnson’s leadership, but the party’s poll ratings have been in the doldrums for years.
Rayner previously called Johnson a “pound-shop Trump,” while Starmer has said he “loathed” the ex-PM.
But the pair claim Johnson’s policy was “killed at birth” by current Tory Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, who was Johnson’s top finance minister, and that regions were not given “the levers” to make change happen.
The show of unity from Starmer and Rayner is also notable. It comes nearly three years after Starmer tried to demote Rayner after disappointing local election results against Johnson.
Johnson quit as prime minister in 2022 after a spate of resignations from his government in the wake of multiple scandals. He later stood down from parliament altogether after a damning report found he’d repeatedly misled MPs about his knowledge of the Covid-19 rule-breaching parties in Downing Street.
