Keir Starmer ‘planning to blame Nigel Farage and Brexit’ for budget tax rises
Sir Keir Starmer is reportedly preparing to blame Nigel Farage and Brexit for the expected decline in Britain’s budget efficiency as part of a fresh attack on the Reform UK leader.
Treasury officials are bracing for the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) to cut its productivity growth forecasts; This downgrade is expected to create an extra deficit of around £20 billion in the November budget. This gap is expected to be filled with tax increases.
But sources said Times Sir Keir and Rachel Reeves plan to lay the blame on the Reform leader who led the campaign to take Britain out of the EU, claiming the downgrade would not have happened if Brexit had not happened.
comes after thatIndependent Brexit has been revealed to cost UK businesses £37bn a year due to a 5 per cent drop in trade with the bloc.
While the government has gone some way to removing the barrier to trade by signing a new co-operation agreement with the bloc earlier this year, there are fears it will not go far enough to remove the hurdles caused by Britain’s exit from the EU.
Sir Keir has previously accused Mr Farage of “fancy” economics, comparing him to former Tory Prime Minister Liz Truss and claiming his tax cut promises would “crash the economy”.
But the prime minister has stepped up his attacks on Mr Farage in recent weeks, using the Labor Party conference to hit back at the “lies and divisiveness” of the right-wing party’s populism, claiming his party was “fighting for the soul of the country” with Reform UK.
In a fiery 54-minute speech to the party’s conference in Liverpool on Tuesday, the prime minister promised protection from the far right after a summer in which British flags became the focus of culture wars.
Claiming that Mr Farage “doesn’t like Britain”, the prime minister insisted Labor was a “patriotic party” and used the speech to lay out his vision of a “land of dignity and respect”.
He warned that Mr Farage and Reform’s policies, which he said would threaten the livelihoods of thousands of legal immigrants, were “racist” and said anyone who argued that people who had lived here for generations should now be deported was an “enemy of national renewal”.
The Prime Minister’s expected new line of attack in the Budget is likely to bring about a series of difficult choices for the government.
There is a growing expectation that the Treasury will be forced to increase taxes by as much as £30 billion in the next Budget due to slowing productivity, government U-turns and higher-than-expected interest payments.
Ms Reeves faces mounting pressure to rescue Britain’s troubled finances, but the government has repeatedly said it will not increase VAT, income tax or national insurance rates in the Budget in November.
Downing Street has been contacted for comment.
