Truss mini-Budget one year on: Will Labour attacks stick to Sunak?

In Truss, we do not trust

Merry mini-Budget eve to all who celebrate! It will be a year tomorrow since Liz Truss and Kwasi Kwarteng’s disastrous fiscal statement that “crashed the economy” as Labour likes to put it. And with the short-lived Prime Minister reappearing in recent days to stress that she was in fact completely right in everything she did thank you very much (anyone buying it?), Labour has today set out plans to “bring growth and stability back to Britain’s economy”, including a pledge to strengthen the Office for Budget Responsibility.

Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves have vowed to bring forward legislation guaranteeing that any future government making significant tax and spending changes will be subject to an independent forecast of its impact by the OBR. The party’s proposals also include setting a fixed timetable for Budgets that would mean that major fiscal decisions would be announced by the end of November each year. It said the change would allow businesses and families four months to “prepare for the new tax year” and avoid “major changes to policy at the last minute”.

Commenting on the announcement, the Shadow Chancellor said her mission if Labour entered government would be to “bring stability back to our economy because that is the only way we can bring growth back”, adding: “Never again can a Prime Minister or Chancellor be allowed to repeat the disastrous mistakes of last year’s mini-Budget.” The opposition has been going hard on Truss attack lines in the run-up to the anniversary in an effort to tie Rishi Sunak to his predecessor’s legacy – including taking a leaf out of the Tories book…

We know who’s really in charge. pic.twitter.com/WXKeROIhEG

— The Labour Party (@UKLabour) September 20, 2023

And a bit more Brexit

A Sky News report on comments Starmer made last weekend about not wanting to “diverge” from the EU has had widespread pick up in other news outlets and led to accusations from the Tories that the Labour leader wants to “unpick Brexit”. Speaking at a gathering of centre-left leaders in Canada, Starmer argued that “most of the conflict” relating to the UK being outside the EU “arises in so far as the UK wants to diverge and do different things to the rest of our EU partners”. He continued: “Actually, we don’t want to diverge, we don’t want to lower standards, we don’t want to rip up environmental standards, working standards for people that work, food standards and all the rest of it.”

The comments – which were livestreamed at the time – have been seen by some as a significant development in Labour’s Brexit position, though Reeves made the obvious point on the broadcast round this morning that it “shouldn’t come as a surprise” that Labour would not “dilute workers’ rights, environmental protections or food standards”. The party has also previously voiced strong opposition to the government’s retained EU law bill, which would have seen all remaining EU laws on the statute book expire at the end of the year unless they were specifically retained or replaced – leading to concern about the loss of employment rights and environmental protections. (The government has since ditched plans for the laws to expire automatically.)

But Labour clearly saw some danger in the attention Starmer’s comments were receiving, with a spokesperson stressing that the UK is “not going back [into the EU] in any form” and that the party does not “support dynamic alignment” with the bloc, which would see the UK commit to maintaining similar laws to the EU in certain areas. “We will not be in a situation where we are a rule taker,” the spokesperson continued. “Any decisions on what standards we follow will be made in the UK parliament.”

In other Labour news…

• SELECTIONS: Eleanor Stringer has been selected as Labour’s candidate for Wimbledon at the next election. She currently serves as deputy leader of Merton council, as well as holding the role of cabinet member for civic pride
• CO-OPERATIVE PARTY: The Co-operative Party’s conference will be taking place this weekend online, with speakers including Labour frontbenchers Ed Miliband, Anneliese Dodds and Jonathan Reynolds, along with Co-op Party chair Jim McMahon
• DEVOLUTION: Labour mayor of West Yorkshire Tracy Brabin has reiterated calls for net-zero decision-making to be devolved to regional leaders and accused Rishi Sunak of a “dereliction of climate leadership” following his U-turn on green policy earlier this week (PoliticsHome)
• STRIKES: The Commons transport committee has outlined nine “tests” for how minimum service levels on the railways might work. ASLEF general secretary Mick Whelan hit back that “most” of the nine tests “are not achieved now, so cannot, and will not, be achieved under MSL” (Politico)
• ELECTIONEERING: Labour has criticised the use of the Tories’ party conference slogan on the lecturn Sunak used for his net zero speech this week and urged cabinet secretary Simon Case to “ensure that government resources are not used for PR for the Conservative Party” (The Times)