LONDON (Parliament Politics Magazine) – Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer said the government’s reduction in the highest rate of income tax would be reversed.
In the midst of a cost-of-living crisis, he told the BBC that the move was not the right choice.Â
However, Sir Keir claimed that because it would ease the tax burden on working people, he backed the proposal to lower the basic rate of tax to 19% form 20%.
Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng outlined intentions to eliminate the higher 45% rate on Friday as he announced the biggest package of tax reductions in 50 years.Â
He didn’t believe that the choice to have tax cuts for those who were making hundreds of thousands of pounds was the correct one when the economy was struggling the way it was, working people were struggling the way they were, Sir Keir said on the BBC’s Sunday With Laura Kuenssberg show.
On the other hand, he stated regarding the reduction in the basic rate of income tax that he had long argued that they should lessen the burden of tax on working people.
For that reason, the Labour opposed the national insurance rise earlier that year, which the government was now reversing, he said.
But Andy Burnham, the mayor of Greater Manchester and a member of the Labour party, suggested that his party should work towards scrapping income tax cuts to both the basic and top rates.
He told Sophy Ridge of Sky News that this “wasn’t the time for tax cuts” because they weren’t the most “tailored” method to assist those who were most in need.
Because he was “focused on tax cuts across the board,” the chancellor refuted claims that his tax cuts favoured the wealthy.
Additionally, Mr. Kwarteng hinted there was “more to come.”
They had only been there 19 days. Because I believed that the British people would be the ones to drive the economy, he wanted to see more people keep more of their money over the coming year, he told the BBC.
Sir Keir added that there is now “a belief” that his party will win the next election because there were indications that some former Labour supporters who voted Conservative in 2019 are switching their allegiance back.
Something had happened in the Labour Party and that was the hope for a Labour government had evolved into a belief in a Labour government, he said.
