Lee Anderson has mocked Angela Rayner in a row over her ex-council house.
The deputy Labour leader is facing intense scrutiny over her living situation a decade ago and whether her ex-council house was her main residence.
Mr Anderson took a swipe at Ms Rayner when asked if northern voters could trust her and Sir Keir Starmer as they made levelling up promises at the launch of Labour’s local election campaign yesterday.
Speaking to the Express as he unveiled Reform UK’s Blackpool South by-election candidate, the Ashfield MP said: “Northern voters don’t even know where Angela Rayner lives so no they won’t trust them.”
Ms Rayner has faced weeks of questions over her former council house after claims made in Tory peer Lord Ashcroft’s unauthorised biography that she failed to properly declare her main home.
The Ashton-under-Lyne MP bought the property in Vicarage Road in Stockport, Greater Manchester, with a 25% discount in 2007 under the right-to-buy scheme and made a £48,500 profit when selling it eight years later.
Government guidance says that a tenant can apply to buy their council home through the right-to-buy scheme if it is their “only or main home”.
In 2010 she married Mark Rayner, who owned a separate house about a mile away on Lowndes Lane.
But according to the book, Ms Rayner remained registered at Vicarage Road on the electoral roll until she sold the property in 2015.
She re-registered the births of their two sons that same year, giving her then-husband’s address.
The Labour MP has insisted that her ex-council house was her “principal property” despite Mr Rayner living elsewhere at the time.
But neighbours have disputed her claim that she lived apart from her then-husband.
The Tories reported Ms Rayner to police over allegations she gave false information on official documents.
Ms Rayner may also owe capital gains tax on the sale of Vicarage Road if it was not her main residence.
The senior Labour MP yesterday again insisted she had “done absolutely nothing wrong”.
She was backed by Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer who expressed his “full confidence” in his deputy.