Keir Starmer lashes out at Rishi Sunak over second lockdown delay
Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer has lashed out at chancellor Rishi Sunak, blaming him for blocking a “circuit breaker” lockdown in September and demanding that he do more to support the economy amid new restrictions.
England is set to go into a second national lockdown on Thursday. Pubs, restaurants, gyms and non-essential shops will have to close for four weeks. The move will hit an already fragile economy hard.
In his first big speech to the UK business community, Starmer took aim at Sunak, whose popularity has soared. Sunak had publicly spoken against a national lockdown as Covid-19 cases surged.
“Make no mistake, the chancellor’s name is all over this,” Starmer told the CBI annual conference.
He said Sunak had taken a “decision to block a circuit breaker, to dismiss it as a ‘blunt instrument’ and to pretend that you can protect the economy without controlling the virus”.
Starmer said this “will now mean that businesses have to close for longer, more people will lose their jobs, and the public finances will be worse than they needed to be”.
The Labour leader said Sunak must “come to parliament today” to offer more economic support ahead of the second lockdown. He said it “must be equivalent to the package put in place in March”.
“It must support businesses forced to close and at risk of closing, and it must protect people’s jobs and pay – including by closing gaps in support for the self-employed.”
The Treasury has been contacted for comment.
Starmer demands clarity on business support
Sunak has extended the furlough scheme that pays 80 per cent of the wages of workers who cannot work during the pandemic. Mortgage holidays have also been extended, and business premises forced to close can receive grants worth up to £3,000 a month.
Earlier on at the CBI conference, business secretary Alok Sharma said: “I do not under-estimate just how difficult these measures will be for businesses.
“So, alongside these measures, we have announced further support.”
Yet Starmer urged Sunak to outline the “full package of support” businesses would be getting, so as to bring clarity to firms.
The Labour leader, who took over after the party’s historic defeat under Jeremy Corbyn in 2019, looked to push the reset button on the party’s relationship with business.
“A Labour government under my leadership will back British businesses – to grow, to succeed and to expand,” he said.
Questioned about whether he would stick to the wholesale nationalisation policies of the Corbyn years, Starmer was ambiguous.
“In 2019 we suffered a devastating loss in the election,” he said. “It’s important you don’t look at the electorate and ask ‘what on earth were you doing?’ You ask, ‘what on earth were we doing?’”