Voters’ verdict: Tax hikes breach manifesto and Reeves should resign
Chancellor Rachel Reeves should resign following a decision to extend the freeze on income tax thresholds in a move seen by voters as a breach of Labour’s manifesto, new polling has revealed.
The government is facing intense pressure over the way it conducted economic policymaking, with questions lurking over a potential breach of the Labour manifesto by extending stealth taxes while ploughing ahead with increases to welfare spending.
The latest Morning Wire/Freshwater Strategy poll of UK voters reveals that a majority of Brits (57 per cent) believe Rachel Reeves should resign in the wake of her controversial Budget, which hiked the tax burden by £26bn to build greater fiscal headroom and fund extra spending on welfare.
The majority includes 29 per cent of Labour voters who agree she should resign. Around a third of voters (32 per cent) said she should not resign, which also included nearly two thirds of Labour voters.
Nearly half of respondents in the nationally representative poll (44 per cent) blamed the government’s own decisions for the latest tax rises, despite ministers’ efforts to pin the blame on the legacy of the previous administration.
Just a quarter of respondents agree with the Chancellor that poor economic performance under the Conservatives is to blame for the new record high tax burden.
The hostile verdict from the public has also seen the Chancellor’s approval ratings drop by four percentage points to a new low of -45.
Opposition leaders including Kemi Badenoch and Nigel Farage have called for the Chancellor to quit amid a row over whether a selective use of official OBR data constituted a bid to mislead the public in the run-up to the Budget.
Voters believe Reeves broke manifesto promise
The sizable drop in public support for the Chancellor comes as the Morning Wire poll shows that most voters disagree with the biggest policy announcements made at the Budget.
The majority of voters (64 per cent) believe a further three-year extension to income tax thresholds, dragging millions of people into higher tax bands, represents a breach of the Labour manifesto, which said taxes on working people would not be increased. Just 12 per cent of respondents said they did not believe it broke the manifesto promise.
When asked if they agreed with the decision, one in five (21 per cent) said it was right to freeze income tax thresholds while a majority (56 per cent) disagreed with the decision.
Most voters (46 per cent) also opposed the decision to lift the two-child benefit cap, a policy seen as helping the government to win back support from disgruntled Labour MPs, while a third said they agreed with the decision to scrap the cap.
Despite policies designed to ease the cost of living for Brits, including stripping some green levies from household energy bills and a further hike in the national living wage, the poll reveals that nearly half of Brits (48 per cent) believe they will be worse off while just 8 per cent said they thought the Budget would leave them better off.
Method note: Freshwater Strategy interviewed n=1,558 eligible voters in the UK, aged 18+ online, between 28 – 30 November 2025. Margin of Error +/- 2.5%. Data are weighted to be representative of UK voters. Freshwater Strategy are members of the British Polling Council and abide by their rules.