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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
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John McDonnell

Labour doesn’t need to sabotage its green prosperity plan – just to cost it clearly

Shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves visits New York City on 22 May 2023.
Shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves visits New York City on 22 May 2023. Photograph: Spencer Platt/Getty Images

Today, Rachel Reeves announced that she is delaying plans to borrow £28bn a year for a green prosperity fund under a Labour government. There may be some influential people in the Labour party who never supported the plan in the first place – maybe because it looked so much like the 2019 manifesto. And now, perhaps as a result, we’re seeing any excuse being used to undermine it.

The argument being put forward is that the bond markets will react to Labour’s borrowing in the same way they responded to Liz Truss’s fantasy budget. This would make the necessary borrowing too expensive to deal with, and anyway, it’s impractical to spend on that scale in the early years of a government.

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