LONDON (AP) — Britain’s opposition Labor Party opened its annual conference Sunday with leaders attacking “immoral” tax cuts by the new Conservative government.
The event, which took place this year in the northern city of Liverpool, comes two days after the UK government, led by new Prime Minister Liz Truss, said it would scrap the 45% tax rate for UK earners from the highest salary, and begin plans to increase growth.
The Labor Party has seized on tax cuts as the main issue for exhausted Britons struggling with the worst rise in the cost of living in decades. “I don’t think choosing to cut taxes for those earning hundreds of thousands of pounds is the right choice when our economy is struggling as it is, working people are struggling as they are,” Labor leader Keir. Starmer told the BBC.
Andy Burnham, the mayor of Manchester, one of the UK’s largest cities, said the policy was “immoral”.
Labor suffered a crushing defeat in the last general election in 2019 under previous leader Jeremy Corbyn and is using the conference as a way to reposition itself as a credible government-in-waiting.
Starmer said there was now “faith in the Labor government” among the electorate to deal with skyrocketing electricity bills that have helped push inflation to 9.9%, while workers get only a modest pay rise.
He has promised to reverse income tax cuts for Britain’s richest and hit energy producers with a windfall tax. He also said his government would invest in green energy to accelerate the transition away from fossil fuels.
The Truss government scrapped the windfall tax while subsidizing energy bills for consumers and businesses. The subsidies are expected to cost taxpayers more than 150 billion pounds ($166 billion).
