Starmer’s priorities have changed. He needs to be honest about why
M.Make no mistake: Sir Keir Starmer’s appearance on Monday morning was not just a bid to talk the Budget. This was a fight for his political life.
After days of intense political debate over whether Rachel Reeves lied about the country’s finances as the budget approaches, the prime minister is now grappling with a serious trust issue that could derail his government and could also bring forward the date when Labor MPs will try to oust him.
During Monday morning’s speech, most media questions rightly focused on whether Sir Keir and the chancellor had deliberately misled markets, the media, the public and their own cabinet colleagues by failing to highlight that the financial picture had improved significantly.
But other key parts of the speech will raise questions about how honest the Prime Minister is about his government’s intentions.
To start, Sir Keir focused much of his speech on ending the two-child benefit cap. He called the decision “a matter of pride” and said it was a “moral mission” to end child poverty.
He gave his speech at a community center and beforehand, he visited a nursery to draw attention to this point.
There is no doubt that the majority of Labor MPs agree with his assessment that the two-child benefit limit should be removed. But they know, as does anyone who follows the ebb and flow of politics, that the prime minister had a different view of politics when he came to power just 18 months ago.
In July, Sir Keir and Ms Reeves were telling the country and their party that while it would be nice to see an end to the two-child benefit limit, it was “unaffordable”. It’s a bit like the evaluations made by retirees a few weeks later about continuing their winter fuel payments.
Not only was it unaffordable, but seven Labor MPs who supported the SNP ending the amendment were suspended from the party and not allowed to return for more than a year.
But Sir Keir now says ending child poverty and the two-child benefit limit has always been his government’s “moral mission”. At the same time, his government’s “No. 1 mission” of economic growth (much talked about when they were first elected) was just a footnote in the same speech.
There are clear reasons to be skeptical about whether the Prime Minister really means what he says on this subject.
The truth is that – much like the ill-fated winter fuel decision – the prime minister was forced into a U-turn by a party he had lost control of. While the pre-summer benefits revolt marks the end of his personal authority, Downing Street sources have highlighted that they think health secretary Wes Streeting is in real trouble in their briefings that he is planning a coup.
So what has changed in 18 months? The most obvious explanation is that the prime minister needs to persuade Labor MPs to stick with him.
All this appears to be political expediency, which was the main charge of Ms Reeves’s extraordinary press conference on November 4, in which she signaled that the Office for Budget Responsibility’s downgrade on the public finances meant taxes would have to rise.
On a second note, Sir Keir repeated his claim that the Budget did not break Labour’s manifesto commitment not to increase income tax, VAT or national insurance.
His argument is that by leaving interest rates aside, they are technically sticking to the commitments that were front and center in their manifesto.
But Ms Reeves said in her Budget last year that freezing the thresholds at which people start paying income tax would actually break the manifesto commitment. That’s exactly what Labor is doing, and it will harm millions of people who will pay more taxes as a result.
Given this background, it becomes difficult for the Prime Minister to convince people that he is completely open about allegations that he and his Chancellor were given deliberate misinformation ahead of the Budget.
Of course, he thinks some of his ministers, who hold intense briefings against the Prime Minister, are guilty of misleading and, at worst, lying about the true state of the UK finances.
The question now is whether and how long Sir Keir and Mrs Reeves can survive. There is an “end of days” feeling about this government, a minister has warned. Christmas holidays can’t come soon enough for Sir Keir.
