Keir Starmer warns Brits will soon be worse off than Poles

2023-02-27

Keir Starmer warns Brits will soon be worse off than people in Poland, unless the UK’s ‘low wage, high tax, doom-loop’ is broken as the Labour leader tackles the Tories over their economic record

Britain will be poorer than Poland within a few years unless the economy is turned around, Sir Keir Starmer warned today.

In a major attack on the Tories’ economic record he attacked a ‘trajectory’ that could see UK families worse off than those in Eastern Europe by the end of the decade.

And he predicted a ‘brain drain’ of young people to places such as Warsaw, Lyon and Munich if there is no change to the current ‘low wage, high tax doom-loop’.

In his City of London speech he set out how, if he becomes Prime Minister, he plans to achieve his first mission of securing the highest growth in the G7.

He said: ‘The British people are falling behind while our European neighbours get richer in the east, as well as in countries like France and Germany.

I’m not comfortable with that, not comfortable with a trajectory that will soon see Britain overtaken by Poland.

The UK just about staved off a recession last year, but growth has flatlined. Chancellor Jeremy Hunt will unveil a Budget in March

Sir Keir and his Shadow Chancellor Rachel Reeves will also host a roundtable of business guests today and has secured endorsements from industry leaders in another attempt to show the party can be trusted on the economy after its leftward lurch under Jeremy Corbyn.

‘Nor am I prepared to accept what the consequences of this failure would mean.

‘I don’t want a Britain where young people, in our great towns and cities, are left with no option but to get out.

‘A brain drain – not just to London or Edinburgh, but to Lyon, Munich, and Warsaw.

‘That’s not the future our country deserves.’

World Bank data cited by Labour shows that GDP per capita in the UK was $44,979 in 2021 compared with $34,915 in Poland, and $33,593 in Hungary, and $30,777 in Romania.

But income grew at just 0.5 per cent in 2020-21, far less than in the former Communist states.

If the trends continue then by 2030 the UK will be $600 poorer per person than Poland.

And by 2040, according to Labour, Britain will be as much as $12,000 behind Romania and $8,000 lower than Hungary.

Sir Keir said he wanted to return the UK to being a ‘rock of economic stability’, but also develop a ‘new model for economic growth’.

In a speech in the City of London setting out his plan to achieve the highest sustained growth in the G7, he said: ‘We have heard loud and clear about the need for certainty, that basic truth: chaos has a cost, that investors need a clear framework with policies that are always fully costed, fiscal rules – sound and followed rigorously, constraints accepted, institutions respected and not bypassed.

‘A rock of economic stability. Our entire mission for growth is built on that, and don’t doubt it for a second.

‘But, honestly, isn’t that the least we should expect? I think so. Britain needs certainty, yes, but also change.’

He said his real ambition was ‘a new model for economic growth, growth from the grassroots, where wealth is created everywhere, by everyone, for everyone’.

Conservative Party chairman Greg Hands said Labour’s plan for government included £90 billion of ‘unfunded spending’.

Mr Hands said: ‘The last time Labour left office, there was no money left, debt was spiralling, and unemployment soared – something the British people will never forget.

‘Everyone already knows what Labour would do to the economy – with £90 billion of unfunded spending, that would just lead to endless borrowing and higher debt.’

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