I’m glad we can now talk about Brexit damage, says Wes Streeting
Wes Streeting says he is pleased the government can now talk about the problems caused by Brexit as the prime minister prepares to blame Britain’s exit from the European Union for Britain’s ailing economy.
Speaking at a panel at the Cliveden Literature Festival, the health minister said the country faced “a very grave danger”.
“We’ve had low productivity and low growth for over a decade and so we face a high tax burden and people are paying more in their taxes and feeling like they’re getting less,” Mr Streeting said.
Asked how much he thought Brexit was responsible for these problems, he said: “That’s part of it. There’s no doubt that’s the other problem we’re dealing with.”
“I am happy that Brexit is now an issue we dare mention.”
Coming after sources say Times The prime minister will blame Nigel Farage and Brexit for the expected productivity slump in Britain’s November Budget 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 drop is likely to create an extra deficit of around £20bn in the November Budget. This gap is expected to be filled with tax increases.
Sir Keir and chancellor Rachel Reeves reportedly plan to argue that the downgrade would not have happened if Brexit had not happened and blame the Reform leader on leading the campaign to take Britain out of the EU.
While the health secretary said he had “tremendous respect” for people who voted to leave the EU, he said there had not been a big enough debate about the economic problems it caused.
“That’s my disappointment… we were warned it would have an economic impact and it did. And it has hit our country hard, which is why we’re having to deal with Brexit,” he said.
“We have to deal with the structural problems in the British economy and we do this by creating stability and creating the conditions where people can invest safely in our country, recognizing that governments do not create growth, but we can help create the conditions for businesses to grow and thrive and that is what we need to do.”
comes laterIndependent 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.
The government has previously been reluctant to criticize Brexit because critics would see it as evidence that Labor wants to take Britain back into the EU.
But in recent weeks the prime minister has stepped up his attacks on Reform Britain and the role it played in removing Britain from the bloc as part of Nigel Farage’s bid to claw back Labour’s struggling approval ratings.
Sir Keir used the Labor Party conference in Liverpool to claim his party was “fighting for the soul of the country” with Reform UK and hitting back at the “lies and divisiveness” of the right-wing party’s populism.
