The prospect that launched a thousand right-wing column inches is finally being considered: Rachel Reeves has admitted she is contemplating tax rises and spending cuts for the next Budget.
The Chancellor is still blaming the Tories, but there’s no hiding from the fact that bashing the fourth-biggest party in parliament isn’t the most politically expedient pastime for the government. Annoyingly for Reeves et al, Nigel Farage has never been within a country mile of running the Treasury, so what is Labour to do?
There is one option, one word that has dominated the discourse for a decade, collapsing governments before drifting away. No, not Covid, Brexit! The Hitch is old enough to remember when, in 2023, Labour appeared keen to embrace leaving the EU. Arch-Remainer Keir Starmer even promised a “take back control” bill that would turn the Brexit campaign slogan “into a solution”. Now, however, Brexit is the catastrophe that caused the government’s latest fiscal black hole. This fresh perspective has nothing to do, of course, with Brexit being the Reform leader’s premier political achievement.
Reeves was eager to make the link in an interview with Sky News this morning: “Austerity, Brexit, and the ongoing impact of Liz Truss’s mini-Budget, all of those things have weighed heavily on the UK economy,” she said. “Already, people thought that the UK economy would be 4 per cent smaller because of Brexit,” she continued. “Now, of course, we are undoing some of that damage by the deal that we did with the EU earlier this year… but there is no doubting that the impact of Brexit is severe and long-lasting, and that’s why we are trying to do trade deals around the world – US, India, but most importantly with the EU.”
It follows a half-hearted attempt by Starmer at the start of the month to label small boats “Farage boats”. That line seems to have been forgotten. But the Hitch suspects this new tag will stick around.
[Further reading: Nigel Farage wasn’t telling the truth on Laura Kuenssberg]
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