Angela Rayner ‘called Prince Andrew a nonce’ and tried to block him from royal duties

The claims were made in a new book about the Labour government

The claims were made in a new book titled 'Get In: The Inside Story of Labour Under Starmer' by Patrick Maguire and Gabriel Pogrund.

Allegedly the Deputy PM fought to remove the Duke of York from the official list of deputies if the King became unable to carry out his duties.

While Labour were in opposition, Rayner claimed to have 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'."

This came in 2022 when King Charles was crowned king which was surrounded by calls for Andrew and Prince Harry to be removed as counsellors of state.

Rayner did not want Prince Andrew to take on such duties because of his links to convicted Paedophile businessman Jeffrey Epstein.

The authors of the book were informed that Rayner was "actively reaching out to the Palace" and "the upper echelons of the civil service" to have Andrew removed from his position.

The book read "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 book is currently being serialised in The Times.

Prince Andrew continues to deny any wrongdoing.

It was only earlier this week that an alleged leaked message from Prince Andrew to Jeffrey Epstein a year after he claimed to have cut off contact was revealed.

Emails revealed during a case brought by Barclays CEO Jes Staley against the Financial Conduct Authority appear to show that the disgraced brother of King Charles wrote to Epstein on the same day a photograph of him emerged with 17-year-old Virginia Giuffre – who claimed she was trafficked by the convicted paedophile.

Andrew wrote back to make sure he had the right date, and added: “keep in close touch and we’ll play some more soon”.

Andrew has strenuously denied claims against him and insisted he has no memory of encountering Ms Giuffre.

He settled her case against him, reportedly to the tune of several millions of pounds.