Keir Starmer has stepped forward to address accusations of waging a "war on middle Britain" as backlash intensifies over proposed tax policies aimed at "working people."
The UK prime minister cleared the air by rejecting the claims of waging a "war on middle Britain".
In a manifesto of the Labour Party, they vowed to not increase the taxes on "working people," explicitly ruling out increases to VAT, national insurance, and income tax.
According to Labour Party sources, Chancellor Rachel Reeves is supposed to hike the national insurance for employers, rather than employees.
However, the Government reacted to this stating that those with modest savings in stocks and shares were still considered "working people" and that the Labour leader had intended someone who primarily depended on assets for their income.
PM comments on working people have also fuelled fears of other tax increases.
Addressing at the end of the Commonwealth heads of government meeting (Chogm) in Samoa on Saturday, the prime minister was asked whether he was "plotting a war on middle Britain".
"No. Let me clear about that," he responded, saying, "What we’re doing is two things in the Budget.
Keir added, "The first is fixing the foundations, which is dealing with the inheritance that we’ve got, including the £22 billion black hole. We have to deal with that. In the past leaders have walked past those problems, created fictions, and I’m not prepared to do that."
He was asked about misleading the public in the Labour manifesto, PM replied, "No, we were very clear about the tax rises that we would necessarily have to make, whatever the circumstances, and you’ve listed them there, and I listed them, I don’t know how many times in the campaign.”
Keir noted, "We were equally clear in the manifesto and in the campaign that we wouldn’t be increasing taxes on working people, and spelt out what we meant by that in terms of income tax, in terms of NICs [National Insurance contributions] and in terms of VAT and we intend to keep the promises that we made in our manifesto."
Notably, Reeves has a plan of £40 billion in tax hikes in next Wednesday’s Budget.
