Is Labour’s Tax U-Turn Driven by Infighting?

Watch Is Labour’s Tax U-Turn Driven by Infighting? - AlArabiya English on Dailymotion

Transcript

00:00Kia Starmer and Rachel Reeves have ditched these plans to raise income tax in the budget.

00:07Do you think this is down to political infighting in the Labour Party following talks of a leadership

00:13challenge that we had earlier this week? Then they weren't true. It's all been a little bit murky.

00:19Yeah, I mean, it segues nicely from what we're just talking about, because everything, if you

00:23want to protect your economy, then you need to improve your security. Otherwise, your economy

00:28goes down and there's no money in the Treasury pot to pay for how you run the country. But

00:33there isn't any extra money coming for defence. And that's because there is a reluctance to

00:39actually put taxes up. And as you implied, there was this plan to increase income tax,

00:47and now they've removed that completely. It's been wrong to tease the nation and indeed the

00:52markets to say, we're going to do what's best for Britain. And now what looks like is, again,

00:57as you implied in your question, the fact that they're under party political pressure to say,

01:01no, that we can't do this. But all that does is put off the inevitable in the longer term,

01:06because the money simply isn't there, not only just around the economy, but to spend more in

01:11defence, which we're inevitably going to have to do.