Labour wants to cut taxes for working people, Starmer says
Labour would like to cut taxes for working people if the party is elected into government, Sir Keir Starmer has said.
The Labour leader told GB News he would like to see the “overall burden” of taxation reduced but maintained the party would “always” operate within its fiscal rules.
Sir Keir said: “I would like the overall burden, particularly on working people to come down, but obviously we will operate of course and always within our fiscal rules.”
Speaking the day after his party conference speech in Liverpool, in which he mentioned a “competitive tax regime”, Starmer told the broadcaster “high tax and low growth… [are] the wrong recipe for the country”.
He said: “We have the highest rates of tax that we have had since the second world war under this government, so all we’ve got from this government is high tax and low growth and that is the wrong recipe for the country.
“Competitive? Of course, but my focus is on growth and growing the economy and that was right through the speech.”
Starmer also insisted he would not seek to rejoin the European Union (EU) despite saying he would seek to renegotiate the Trade and Cooperation Agreement with the bloc.
“We will not try to reverse the result, we do not intend to go back into the EU,” he pledged, adding: “Or for that matter into the single market or the customs union.
“That doesn’t mean I don’t think we can improve on the deal that we’ve got. And I think whether you look at security, arts and innovation or trade, almost everybody thinks there is room for improvement.
“We saw that to an extent in the protocol the Prime Minister renegotiated earlier this year, but we are not arguing we are not making the case, there is no intention to return to the EU.”
Starmer also told GB News he believed “behind the vote there was a deep sense across the country of an inability to influence things in their own lives, their own communities”.
The Labour leader said: “We’ve had 13 years of decline. Now I am putting on the table 10 years of national renewal.
“It’s also why you may have noticed that I reached outside the conference hall into the country and invited Conservative voters, people who voted for other parties to join us.”
He said he wanted to make clear that a Labour government was intended to be “a national project” with “everybody that cares about their country… welcome to join us”.