Politicians of all stripes have been chasing the “brat” label all summer, but only one has come close to truly pulling off the role.
On Thursday, Angela Rayner was spotted raving behind a DJ deck in Ibiza, belting out the lyrics to a remix of Gotye’s hit song Somebody That I Used to Know to a large, cheering crowd.
She was partying at Hi Ibiza, a 5,000-capacity club on the Spanish party island, alongside the Australian DJ Fisher, who placed his headphones on the deputy prime minister. The footage was posted on social media by the TV presenter Denise van Outen at about 4am on Thursday.
Hours earlier, at 6.50pm on Wednesday, Rayner posted on X that she had met mayors and housing regulators that day to discuss speeding up the removal of dangerous cladding from thousands of residential buildings in response to a major fire at a block of flats in Dagenham, east London, on Monday.
Rayner is due back in parliament on Monday, when the parliamentary summer recess ends. It is not known when she will land back in the UK.
This is not the first time Rayner has been spotted out clubbing. In 2022, she took to the decks for a battle of the DJs charity event in Manchester. She went up against Andy Burnham, the mayor of Greater Manchester, and Steve Rotheram, the mayor of Liverpool city region, and played the rave classic Set You Free by N-Trance.
Dancefloor antics are a cross-party affair. In 2021, Michael Gove was filmed giving it his all in an Aberdeen nightclub after reportedly trying to avoid paying the £5 entrance fee by stating that he was the chancellor of the duchy of Lancaster.
Footage of the now former MP throwing shapes at Bohemia nightclub circulated on the internet. His hands flailed wildly, and occasionally swung in time to the music, in the clip filmed by a fellow clubber. Friends of Gove denied that he had attempted to avoid paying the entry fee.
While politicians have shown that no one is above a night out, those seeking to avoid the glare of cameras in the foggy smoking area may be out of luck. Rayner’s lively getaway came as Keir Starmer signalled support for plans to restrict smoking outside pubs and restaurants, including in designated areas on-site and pavements.
If it does go ahead, Starmer may himself be barred from the vaunted and exclusive “brat” club, which counts the US Democrat Kamala Harris among its members. This is because Charli xcx, the artist behind the lime green summer sensation, has said a true brat is usually armed with a “pack of cigs [and] a Bic lighter”.
