KEIR Starmer has been accused of “sidelining” his flagship growth pledge – with economic forecasts plunging in the wake of Labour’s first Budget.
The Prime Minister is expected to ditch his pre-election target of Britain having the fastest growth in the G7 in a “reset” speech later this week, The Telegraph reports.
Patrick Maguire, a journalist who is currently writing a book on Starmer's leadership of the Labour Party, told Times Radio that the reset meant Labour's past pledges or missions had been junked in favour of three targets: reduce immigration, increase disposable incomes and cut waiting lists.
He said it showed Labour now saw its "one mission" as holding onto power at the next election, adding: "This is an attempt to get away from what you might call pure Starmerism and do retail politics."
The speech is being viewed by Starmer’s critics as an admission that Labour have lost the confidence of the country just six months after winning a landslide victory at the election.
Business confidence has also plummeted in the wake of the Budget, with the Confederation of British Industry saying that the majority of companies expect a decline in activity, threatening jobs.
The business body found that companies were planning layoffs – with firms blaming Labour’s tax on employment – while all major private sector areas reporting falling business volumes, sales or output.
During the election, Starmer refused to be drawn on questions about whether Labour would cut public spending, increase taxes or borrow more money, arguing that those were not the only “levers” available to him and that “growth is the lever that I intend to pull”.
Since coming to power, Labour have cut spending in some areas, increased some taxes and increased borrowing, but growth has fallen.
The UK achieved Labour’s target of being the fastest-growing economy in the G7 before the General Election but this has now slowed to 0.1% of gross domestic product (GDP) in the third quarter of the year.
Starmer’s speech on Thursday is expected to focus on new targets around improving living standards rather than the more abstract growth measure.
A Tory spokesperson told The Telegraph: “Keir Starmer said he wanted to build trust in politics but by sidelining his key election pledge he is breaching that very trust.”
The SNP said Labour had taken a “wrecking ball to jobs and wages” and “destroyed” business confidence.
Dave Doogan (above), the party’s economy spokesperson, said: “We warned there was a very real danger National Insurance rises could lead to squeezed pay for thousands of Scottish workers, fewer jobs and even redundancies – now the CBI has issued this stark outlook, the Labour Government must listen.”
He predicted 2025 would be “another year of inflation and low growth”.
Elsewhere, the reset speech is also set to see Labour risk declining performance in key NHS indicators in favour of getting waiting lists down.
Starmer is expected to promise that by March 2029, the NHS in England will meet its target – which has been missed for almost a decade – of carrying out 92% of routine operations and appointments within 18 weeks, The Times reported.
But the paper said NHS bosses feared this would mean services in other key areas would have to be cut back, with a source saying it would turn accident and emergency units into a “warzone”.
There are also said to be concerns the focus on getting waiting lists down for “non-urgent” treatment will harm other parts of the system, including access to GPs, mental health care and dentistry.
