Tories offering ‘Jeremy Corbyn-style manifesto’, says Starmer

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Andrew Feinberg

White House Correspondent

The Conservatives have built a “Jeremy Corbyn-style manifesto” that will “load everything into the wheelbarrow” without explaining how to pay for it, Sir Keir Starmer has said.

The Labour leader derided the Tory manifesto ahead of its release on Tuesday, comparing it to the proposals put forward by his predecessor in 2019.

Visiting Whale Hill Primary School in Middlesbrough, Sir Keir said the Conservatives had used a pledge to crack down on tax avoidance to fund “at least four different propositions”.

He told reporters: “That’s why I say it’s a Jeremy Corbyn-style manifesto, which is load everything into the wheelbarrow, don’t provide the funding and hope that nobody notices.

“The money isn’t there, it is a recipe for five more years of chaos.”

Mr Corbyn has previously said Sir Keir should not “diss” Labour’s 2019 manifesto, having served in his shadow cabinet between 2016 and 2020 and campaigned on the manifesto at the last general election.

But Sir Keir said the rejection of that manifesto had led him to change the Labour Party.

He said: “If you lose that badly, you don’t look at the electorate and say ‘What were you doing?’, you look at your party and say ‘You need to change’.”

He added that Labour’s manifesto, set to be released on Thursday, will be “fully-funded, fully-costed” and help stabilise the economy.

Campaign group Momentum, which supports Mr Corbyn, attacked Sir Keir’s remarks, saying: “Labour’s 2019 manifesto was fully costed. Keir should know, he stood on it as a member of the shadow cabinet.

“But instead he insists, inexplicably, on attacking his own side during an election and spreading misinformation in the process.

“Perhaps what Keir doesn’t like about 2019 Labour policies like public ownership and wealth taxes was that they offered real change, not just the illusion of it.”

Rishi Sunak is set to launch the Conservative manifesto at an event at Silverstone on Tuesday, with Work and Pensions Secretary Mel Stride saying it will contain “big, bold interventions” to help people buy their first homes.

The manifesto is also expected to include promises of further tax cuts, following the cuts to national insurance implemented by Chancellor Jeremy Hunt over the past year.