In a sharp critique today, Kemi Badenoch urged the Labour Party to focus on reducing expenditure rather than burdening the British public with further tax increases.
The Conservative leader’s pointed remarks came after Chancellor Rachel Reeves all but confirmed plans to impose additional tax hikes in the upcoming Budget.
Speaking at an event in central London, Badenoch criticized the government for quietly abandoning efforts to rein in the ballooning welfare expenses.
“The Chancellor’s speech was nothing more than a series of excuses,” she declared, likening it to a “waffle bomb.”
Badenoch accused Reeves of shifting blame, attributing failures to others rather than owning up to her own decisions and shortcomings.
She argued that the challenges faced by graduates, such as unemployment, cannot be pinned on technology advancements like AI. Instead, Badenoch suggested that these issues stem directly from the policies enacted by Reeves in last year’s budget, which she claims have led to bleak job prospects for many young people.
Kemi Badenoch today demanded Labour slashes spending instead of punishing Brits with another wave of tax hikes
The tax burden is already heading towards a post-war high even before the new raid
‘Only the Conservatives are committed to getting on top of spending,’ she warned.
Mrs Badenoch said Ms Reeves was giving ‘a masterclass in managed decline’ that left business leaders and investors ‘confused’ because ‘Labour doesn’t have a plan to get Britain working’.
She pointed out that graduate jobs are down by a third since Labour took office.
She criticised ‘insane rates of marginal tax’ and said ‘Britain has stopped working because for too many it has stopped making sense to work’.
The Tory leader said of Labour: ‘They talk about working people while making life harder and harder for people who actually work, and worst of all, they pretend that what they’re doing is all necessary.
‘They pretend that they don’t have a choice. The reality is that they have given up trying to change anything.
‘They have given up trying to get the Government to live within its means, and they have given up on not raising tax.
‘That’s what Rachel Reeves was telling us this morning, and a Government that refuses to live within its means, while telling everyone else to tighten their belts isn’t being fair, that Government is being hypocritical.
‘Getting the Government to live within its means is not austerity, it is respect. It is respect for taxpayers’.
Mrs Badenoch said it was ‘utterly ridiculous to see Rachel Reeves stand there blaming everybody except herself’.
‘Unemployment has risen every single month since Labour came into office but she wants to blame me for that? That’s crazy.
‘She should look at her job tax, look at what she did in the Budget.’
She said of Ms Reeves: ‘This is a Chancellor whose back is against the wall. She doesn’t know what she’s doing. We need to get Britain working again.
‘She should copy and paste our plan, that’s the best that she can do right now.’
The comments came after Ms Reeves laid the ground for a manifesto-smashing Budget tax raid today – and insisted it will be everyone else’s fault.
The Chancellor talked up the need to ‘invest’ as she took the highly unusual step of teeing up her fiscal package with a speech in Downing Street.
She stressed international headwinds and rising costs of servicing the debt mountain – but squarely blamed Brexit and Tory austerity, suggesting ‘longer-term factors’ meant the economy ‘is not working as it should’.
In a blatant softening up exercise ahead of her announcements on November 26, Ms Reeves said there is a ‘clear choice’ between ‘investment and hope, or cuts and division’. Ominously hinting at broad tax assault, she warned that ‘we will all have to contribute’ to getting the country back on track.
Chancellor Rachel Reeves made the highly unusual move of teeing up her fiscal package with a speech in Downing Street
‘These are important choices that will shape the future of our country for years to come,’ she said.
Ms Reeves repeatedly dodged invitations to repeat Labour’s election vow not to increase income tax, national insurance or VAT. She said she would do ‘what is right’ rather than ‘popular’ and prioritise ‘protecting our NHS, reducing our national debt, and improving the cost of living’.
‘Any Chancellor of any party would be standing here facing the choices that I face,’ she insisted.
The intervention effectively confirms that Brits face another brutal raid, with the black hole in the public finances estimated at between £20billion and £50billion.
That potentially includes increases to income tax, council tax and pain for the ‘wealthy’.
There was a nervous reaction from markets, with the FTSE 100 falling – although interest rates on government debt also eased slightly.
