Streeting has also gone further than Starmer on Britain\u2019s relationship with Europe.\u00a0<\/p>\n
His argument late last year that \u201cthe best way for us to get more growth into our economy is a deeper trading relationship with the EU\u201d was widely interpreted as a signal that he was open to a customs union \u2013 something the Prime Minister still appears to be ruling out.<\/p>\n
Whether you agree with this agenda or not, markets combine these two positions and hear a commitment to reducing trade friction, favouring competitive tax rates and stronger investment incentives, and therefore a larger potential growth rate for the British economy.<\/p>\n
This is the key distinction between Streeting and rivals from Labour\u2019s Left. Investors can tolerate relatively high public spending, if they believe an economy is capable of generating the growth required to sustain it.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Burnham and Rayner are perceived as politicians whose instinct in the face of fiscal pressure would be to raise taxes, expand borrowing and increase labour market intervention. Streeting, by contrast, is viewed as someone more likely to pursue growth through supply-side reform, boosting business confidence and meaningful economic integration with Europe.<\/p>\n
Whether that perception is entirely fair is almost secondary. After all, Streeting has also spoken favourably about higher corporation tax and aligning capital gains tax with income tax.\u00a0<\/p>\n
But if investors believe it, they will demand a lower premium to lend to Britain. And in a country carrying debt close to 100pc of GDP, even small changes in borrowing costs can have significant fiscal benefits.<\/p>\n
All of this creates an intriguing paradox inside Labour politics. The leader most distrusted by parts of the party\u2019s Left may ultimately be the one most capable of financing the expansive social-democratic state that they all crave.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Whether they buy into this may determine who our next Prime Minister will be.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Streeting has also gone further than Starmer on Britain\u2019s relationship with Europe.\u00a0 His argument late last year that…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":33990,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[2231,13,633,1183,254,94,31,613,182,431,4108],"class_list":{"0":"post-33989","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-britain","8":"tag-bonds","9":"tag-britain","10":"tag-business","11":"tag-comment","12":"tag-economy","13":"tag-keir-starmer","14":"tag-labour-party","15":"tag-opinion","16":"tag-rachel-reeves","17":"tag-uk-economy","18":"tag-wes-streeting"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@UnitedKingdom\/116557275598846829","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33989","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33989"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33989\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33990"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33989"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33989"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33989"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}