Reeves’s dilemma: break your tax pledges or cast Labour adrift from its principles

Rachel Reeves will squeeze future spending plans in this week’s spring statement. Photograph: Jeff Overs/PA

The ferocious backlash against the £5bn in welfare cuts crafted to balance the books in this Wednesday’s spring statement highlighted an increasingly glaring conflict, between Labour’s pre-election tax pledges and the party’s wider purpose.

Since Rachel Reeves promised last autumn to deliver a single, annual budget, she has been confronted with rising debt interest costs, weaker-than-expected economic growth, and the near-collapse of the transatlantic alliance. “The world has changed,” as every Treasury press release now has it.