UK tax rise will be ‘biggest betrayal in history’ – ex-chancellor

Labour finance chief Rachel Reeves has been accused of backtracking on pre-election promises

The UK’s Labour government will likely need to raise taxes in its new budget, Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves has said. Her Conservative predecessor, Jeremy Hunt, claimed the move would be “the biggest betrayal in history by a new chancellor.”

Reeves took over as the country’s chief financial minister after Labour won a resounding victory in the general election earlier this month. She warned in Parliament on Monday that the previous 14 years of Tory rule had left the UK’s finances £22 billion ($28 billion) over budget.

Hunt accused Reeves of playing the blame game and preparing the groundwork to backtrack on her pre-election promises. “When she does, her first budget will become the biggest betrayal in history by a new chancellor,” the Hunt claimed.

Reeves admitted Labour will likely have to raise taxes for this year’s budget in October, but maintained that she will keep her vow to leave Value Added Tax, National Insurance, and income tax untouched.

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“I think we will have to raise taxes,” she admitted to the News Agents podcast in an interview published on Tuesday. “I stick by everything in our manifesto,” Reeves insisted when pressed on her pre-election promises. “We’re giving pay rises to millions of public sector workers, in many cases the first real terms increase in pay in a decade,” she added.

Continuing the back-and-forth over who was to blame over the UK’s financial woes, Hunt accused the new chancellor of “refusing to take the difficult decisions.” “Reeves will do what she planned all along like every Labour Chancellor in history – raise your taxes,” he wrote on X (formerly Twitter) on Tuesday.

The row came a day after Reeves scrapped a number of infrastructure projects planned under the previous government, in an effort to bring the budget overspend under control.