Angela Rayner has warned Andy Burnham “must” win this week’s by-election in Makerfield as she accused Reform UK’s candidate of being “Nigel Farage’s sexist puppet”.
Labour and Reform are fighting to win the crucial contest on Thursday, which could see Mr Burnham return to parliament and launch his attempt to oust Sir Keir Starmer from No 10.
Reform’s candidate Robert Kenyon has faced major backlash in recent weeks, after a series of now-deleted comments he made about women online resurfaced.
Two days before voters head to the polls, Mr Rayner hit out at Mr Kenyon’s comments, which included a suggestion women can’t “ref, drive or give directions”.
“I know that this conference is an important thing that’s happening this week, but there’s also an election on Thursday,” the former deputy prime minister told the Unison national conference.
“A choice between Andy Burnham and Nigel Farage’s sexist puppet. It is a fight that we must win. But that is just the start, conference, we must finish the job on workers’ rights.”
Mr Kenyon has faced backlash in recent weeks after a number of offensive comments made on social media were unearthed.
The Independent revealed that an account linked to Mr Kenyon wrote that women can’t “ref, drive or give directions” and declared: “I’m sexist, sorry but I am.”
Posts made on an online rugby league fan forum in the 2010s objectified European women’s bodies while saying English women “don’t care” and “just walk around with their fat bellies and odd shapes pushing a pram at 16 in their PJ’s”.
The user also said in an RLFans forum: “European women…all have really good figures and are good looking”, and responded to a post with links to images of women, saying: “Wouldn’t get me off any of those with a bazooka.”
In posts made on a now-deleted X account, a @robkenyon1 account also shared a sexually explicit post sent to Carol Vorderman on her birthday, in which another user declared he wanted to perform a sexual act on the TV presenter.
Another user responded to the post, saying: “If you’re prepared to put this on a public forum, I would suggest that your computer drive probably needs checking.”
But @robkenyon1 replied: “He’s only saying what we’re all thinking.”
Mr Kenyon has repeatedly refused to apologise for the comments, which Reform UK has dismissed as “locker room banter”.
Appearing on a special Makerfield by-election episode of BBC’s Question Time earlier this month, Mr Kenyon denied he was a sexist.
“I won’t accept that label, I mean a lot of the things have been said 15 years ago,” he said. “I was brought up by a single parent and my grandma, who was a widow, and an older sister. So I was brought up by women.
“I’ve got nothing but respect for women, you know, so I think something that’s said, you know, 15 years ago, dragged up from an old rugby forum, you know, it’s completely taken out of context.
“And like I say, I’ve made mistakes, I’ve said things years ago that I wouldn’t say now and I definitely don’t believe that, on that point.”
Mr Kenyon is trailing just five percentage points behind Mr Burnham in recent constituency polling seen by The Independent.
According to the poll, the mayor of Greater Manchester has a narrow lead – on 46 per cent – while Mr Kenyon trails five points behind on 41 per cent.
But Mr Burnham’s lead in the poll is within the margin of error, which is just under 5 per cent, and the margin of late-campaign movement – meaning it is too close to call.
