Labour is set to plough tens of billions of pounds into red wall seats leaning towards Reform UK as the party ramps up its efforts to halt the rise of Nigel Farage.
After months of haemorrhaging voters to Mr Farage’s populist outfit, Rachel Reeves will unveil spending for a slew of road, rail and green energy projects in the north and Midlands, according to reports.
The chancellor will use next month’s spending review to reprioritise spending from the southeast to the red wall seats that Labour won at the last election, but are now under threat from Reform, it is claimed.
It could free up tens of billions of pounds to invest in the projects in areas where Labour fears Mr Farage’s appeal as part of an overall £100 billion pot Ms Reeves can use to invest in infrastructure after tweaking her fiscal rules in last year’s Budget.
Touting the fiscal rule change in January in a speech promising to kickstart growth, Ms Reeves said: “We have changed course on public investment, too.
“With a new investment rule to ensure that we don’t just count the costs of investment, we count the benefits too.”
The chancellor said the changes would deliver £100 billion for “growth-enhancing” capital spending. And, paving the way for the spending spree in the red wall, she vowed to review the government’s Green Book, which is used to judge the costs and benefits of projects, to “provide objective, transparent advice on public investment across the country, including outside London and the south east”.
The review, to be published alongside the wider spending review, is expected to conclude the government should give greater priority to public sector investment in areas of lower economic productivity, The Times reported.
The red wall investment drive comes after Ms Reeves faced pressure from an influential group of Labour MPs to funnel more money to the north and Midlands. Bassetlaw MP Jo White, who chairs the red wall group of MPs, said the spending review must have an offer for the red wall seats.
And it is Labour’s latest effort to stem the rise of Reform, with Mr Farage’s party hitting a new polling high on Thursday.
The Techne UK weekly tracker poll for The Independent revealed that Reform has hit an all time high of 31 per cent (up 1 from last week), nine points above Labour on 22 per cent (unchanged) and almost double Kemi Badenoch’s Tories stuck in third equal on 16 per cent (down 1).
As the poll was released, Sir Keir Starmer was in St Helens delivering a speech aimed entirely at potential backers of Mr Farage, warning that his “fantasy” economics will lead to a Liz Truss-style economic meltdown.
Sir Keir branded Mr Farage’s policies a “mad experiment”, insisting he would “be exactly the same” as Ms Truss.
He said: “Apparently [Mr Farage] is in Las Vegas today at a casino, and it’s not a surprise, because he said that the Liz Truss budget in his view was the best since 1986.
“That shows his judgment. It shows what he’d do and the result would be exactly the same. I’m not prepared to let that happen.”
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