The UK’s finance minister is “on the brink” of being forced out of power just days after delivering the national budget over what have been called “smoke and mirrors” and “tax lies”.
The endlessly cited “black hole” in the UK’s public finances that the country’s left-leaning Labour government used to justify a major tax raid on the nation doesn’t actually exist , official government figures published just days after the government’s budget status said.
The revelation that — it is claimed — the Chancellor (finance minister) knowingly misled the country to push through tax hikes is rapidly becoming a scandal of considerably proportions and threatens the position of Chancellor Rachel Reeves. Given how intimately Reeves is entwined in Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer’s project, it is hard to see how Reeves resigning or being dismissed wouldn’t bring down the whole government.
Reeves was insisting on her probity up until the very moment the finance figures from the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) were published on Friday night, and the UK’s Saturday newspapers are full of the crisis. Standard-bearer of the centre right The Daily Telegraph says Reeves is “on the bring over tax lies” and reports that it appears to be the case that major tax hikes have been enacted this week on the pretext of a fiscal black hole that didn’t exist.
Far from there being a £30 billion gap in the government’s budgets, the paper notes the OBR now reveals it told Reeves it was never more than £2.5 billion and at times the projection was even of a surplus.
The Chancellor is now “at war” with the OBR over the claims and counter-claims, the paper notes. Despite being a new-found part of the UK political system — having only been created in 2010 to act as a watchdog on state fiscal probity — the OBR is treated with immense seriousness and the body has already brought down a government in recent memory.
Left-wing tabloid The Mirror took a different tack, leading on Reeves denying she’d misled the public. A spokesman for the Chancellor said they “don’t accept” the claims and that “she set out her decisions incredibly clearly at the Budget.”
The British newspaper of record, The Times, splashes on allegations that, incredibly damningly, Reeves delivered a “smoke and mirrors” budget this week. Besides being “accused of misleading the country” on the apparently fictional black hole to justify her tax hikes, industry representatives were cited on Reeves promising lower taxes while actually increasing them by stealth.
The Daily Mail was even more forthright, blaring “‘Liar’ Reeves Must Go Now” for lies and “deliberately crashing the economy”. Giving lie to the budget black hole claim, the paper reminds that even while talking of responsibility and the need for more Britons to shoulder the tax burden — a direct contradiction of the party platform Labour was elected on — that Reeves pushed through huge welfare spending rises this week.
The paper cited the Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch so is said to have remarked: “For months, Reeves has lied to the public to justify record tax hikes to pay for more welfare.
“Her Budget wasn’t about stability. It was about politics: bribing Labour MPs to save her own skin. Shameful.”
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